Sing to Me
by Vanimalion
Summary: Legolas struggles with grief, depression, and being gay in a homophobic culture. Amid a tangle of lies and deceptions, he must attempt to reconcile who he wishes to be with who he actually is. In the end it all comes down to what passion and love are worth, and what it means to truly be alive.
1. Prologue: Voices

**DISCLAIMER****:**

**All characters, places, and lore belong to J.R.R. Tolkien. I am naught but a humble fanatic and claim no ownership of these beautiful people or their world. This applies to all further chapters.**

_Author's Note,_

_There are a few things that must be clarified before you read this piece, which I hope you do because that would make me very, very happy. Anyway, you should know that…_

_This is not slash. However, my Legolas is gay. There will be no romantic or sexual scenes between any characters (though there may be inexplicit references to such scenes that may have happened off-screen and in the past), but the fact remains. I am for some reason no longer able to comfortably write straight characters, so he is gay. Forgive me my quirks. His homosexuality is and will remain a reasonably prominent theme throughout parts of the story. You have been warned. Let the closeted gay commence._

_Italicized text is __not always__ a thought, but used also for memories, poetic effect, and any other non-conforming sections of the piece, such as the following prologue. Anything that fits outside of the standard narrative will be italicized. This will contain a fair variety of different things, so just read them as they come and take them with an open mind. They are what you make them._

_My chapters may be of inconsistent length. I write this in whatever order feels best to me and all chapters will be made of scenes that I feel fit together as a whole. I will try to keep things reasonably even but my mind doesn't always cooperate with me. Therefore, some chapters may be relatively long if there is a large scene or group of scenes that all fit, and some may be very short if I feel that a scene is independent. The quality and flow of the sections is my priority here, so length consistency will be sacrificed when need be. Bear with me, people!_

_This piece is beta read by MyselfOnly and Lindir's Ghost, so a great big thanks to them. This probably wouldn't be happening without their help. They are amazing :)_

_Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy this little piece of my mind, _

_Sincerely,_

_-Vanimalion_

**- Prologue -**

- Legolas -

_The first time I ever met them was after my mother died. They carried her in dead and my keeper tried to shield my eyes and take me away, but I slipped free and I saw. There was so much blood… I remember it dripping like some sickly red rain upon the marble floors. I saw her twisted limbs, her face contorted in pain, and I froze in terror, looking into dead and empty eyes._

_And then I ran, slipping through secret spaces in my sprint to escape this invisible thing, chasing me with teeth of sun-stained bone like the tips of my child's arrows, from hollow, empty eyes. And I lost my keepers and ran from this mortal's monster that I saw could catch me, far from the world I had known, so safe and green and beautiful. It seemed to me that it was ruined forever. It was no longer a haven, and I felt I needed to hide away. I ran through long halls lit with torches that never burned out and I found myself before a door of oak. I screamed at it to let me through and it did, swinging open with a creak and I slipped within. There were torches there, but not as many and it was dim._

_I was in a room of beautiful, glittering things of gold and silver, precious fabric, shining wood, and I buried myself under ancient, soft robes in a chest and I cried. And as I lay there I heard soft singing and was comforted._

_I slept, and when I woke I left, finding my way back I knew not how, just guessing each turn, coming upon my Ada's door and creeping into his lap. My short life and memory had been overfilled by my mother's death, and I forgot about the old chest with the robes, and I forgot about the singing voices, and instead I just cried, still not quite understanding exactly what had happened._

_When death struck again, taking one of my older brothers, I repeated my journey, searching, finding the door, the trunk, the robes, and again I listened to the voices singing without words down in the deep hall of forgotten things, and I was not afraid. It was safe, still, and my tears and fears were unknown by anyone. Save, of course, myself and the singers I could never see._

_And then again I left, and I did not tell of what I had done. Not right then, and not to all._

_But one night, nestled under the blankets of the palace we had created, my twin sister Erien and I hid from the beasts of the wild, a bag of apples and flask of stolen juice with us as previsions. We hid inside and played our childish games, and in the deep depths of the night I confessed to my sister where I had gone, and she smiled. "That is Ada's treasure-place, Lassë. He hides precious things there. There are old things, magic things…" Seeing my rapt expression, she started at me with a maniacal leer, the gaps from her two missing baby teeth and the shadows of her tangled hair making her look half the witch of mannish tales, and I was frightened. _

"Evil_ things, Lassë!" She paused, cocking her head as if listening to something. "Do you hear?" she said, "Do you hear them? I hear them singing, trapped down in the walls, at the very roots of the hill where the things are kept." And she leaned close, whispering, "The old things, Lassë, the old things in Ada's treasure-place… they have fëar, just like you and me, and they can see you, hear you, and they are trapped down there, tied to their old, evil, magic things… waiting… sometimes they float about and catch little hen-ellyn like you and take them down to the deep-places and turn them into stone, and then they be there _forever_!"_

_It terrified me, this description. I could not sleep for fear of the fëar coming out and getting me. I buried myself under a pillow in our palace of blankets, as if somehow the soft cloth and stuffing could protect me from wandering souls. I slept little, too aware of every sound from without, and in the morning I was tired from all my stress. My sister was as bouncy as she always was, and when I took her aside and asked her why she was not afraid of the buried fëar she said that they were her friends, and that she had nothing to fear from them. And so I stayed by her, scared that if I left her side they would get me, and I went no more down into the room to visit the singers._

_After I had grown some and lost my childish trust, I told myself that Erien's story was just a silly tale, and I knew that I could walk alone through the halls without fear of being possessed or murdered by wandering fëar, and so I began to forget about them. I had been taught to hide away my feelings, and a prince could no longer afford to run off into the bowels of the mountain at will anyway. I had duties, responsibilities, training. There was no more time for idle play and no more time to dwell upon my varying discontent. I took my responsibilities to heart, perhaps too much, for I was far too young. My people before myself, I had been told, and so I worked and was praised for my tirelessness and efficiency. What was asked of me was done, somehow, though I was tired and I hated being locked in those stuffy rooms, shuffling papers and getting ink on everything. Too young, I was, and too free of heart for such matters._

_I longed to be set loose again, to be free of duties and allowed to run all day in the forest. But alas those days were almost passed. _

_And then everyone left, going away on their mission to Mordor, and I was left with Erien and my older brother, Elethas. And it was then, in my lonely youth, that the sons of Elrond came to visit us. And we were the two sets of twins, one dark and one golden like the sun. And we were hated by the staff, the four of us. Erien would steal things and we would sneak them into secret places and play with them, or if they were food we would have a tiny feast in some hidden chamber in a tower. I became neglectful of my duties and was chastised, yet I was happy. I was a child again, something lost so soon, and it felt good to play._

_We became close in those years, the four of us. Knit tightly together like we were to no others, one tangled group of mud-stained, happy elflings just shy of their majority and inseparable, save by necessity. They were good days, and their presence broke a bit of the loneliness that was ever there, like a dark cloud over the mountain under which we all lived. Even my brother Elethas was not so bitter then. It was wonderful, and as I look back, I realize I have never been so happy since, and never have I had friends – family, truly – as close as those three. I was open then, and I let them in, all of them, and there they have remained._

_Of course, this joyous time was not to last, not for ever. The war ended and only my father returned out of my family that had departed eight years past. Only one of five that had left, and I felt cold at heart for the first time. My father returned, Elladan and Elrohir departed with Elrond, and that happy time was over. It was just me, just me and Erien, alone in the palace under the hill. My father was a ghost of who he had been, though I admit I remember little of his true self. He was cold and distant and for many years the things he saw haunted him, and sometimes I would hear him screaming in the night when his dreams were dark. _

_He was coldest then, I think, although I feel it more likely that now it is all I know and therefore he seems whole to me. I know not. So much was uncertain when he returned, and such was my hurt and confusion when he stopped touching me. It is odd, the things I never knew I loved until I noticed their absence, and I may say that the friendly touch of my father's hand was missed. He would no longer hold me when I was upset, he would no longer rest his fingers lovingly upon my shoulder, pat my back, or ruffle my hair and smile, amused at my reaction. Perhaps these were gestures only a child would wish to receive, and so I told myself. I was no longer a child and he was treating me in the manner of an adult. Adults did not get their hair ruffled. I should be honored, and I thought I was. And so I told Erien, one night in the secret places, and she looked at me and her gaze was sad. She always saw things more clearly than I did._

_Then, barely past my majority, I was wed to an elleth from Mithlond that I did not, have not, and will never love as I should. Set up by our parents, we courted and then, in a brief moment of carelessness, she discovered a secret of mine - the one I hide from all, the sickness of which none ever speak. She found it and used it to her advantage then and bought my political influence and wealth with a string of bribes and threats to tell the people. She knew she could get me banished from the Greenwood for my perversion, should I deny her request to marry. She has always been cunning. But I would have wed her anyway, for she is not an unkind soul, only misguided, and she hides secrets as well. She finds solace in the touch of one of my guardsmen, and this I know and I care not. Indeed her affair is one of the reasons I wished to wed her, for this arrangement frees me from the task of lying with - and to - a true wife. It is something that I have never been able to find appealing, no matter what I do. It is this lack of lust for the female sex that I must hide. But though she blackmailed and bribed me, it was our own agreement, in the end, to marry for the betterment of our realms. The alliance we created between Mithlond and Greenwood is the only redeeming quality of our immorality and sin. And yet at the heart of it all we are naught but selfish, for we both have dark secrets to keep, and so we sacrifice ourselves to a life of lies, masking our shameful affairs with royal grace. _

_I show my love to the people and I am kind and gracious and good to my wife, but when I return to the mountain Miriel and I sleep in separate beds. She locks herself in our official quarters and I return to my private rooms, commissioned by me under the lie that they are one large studio for my painting. And they are, that part is true. Except that I sleep there as well, and entertain myself with ellyn, like my wife does with her bond-mate, only even more secretly, and with the added instability of the situation. Every encounter is carefully arranged and hidden, every meeting full of the fear that he might betray my secrets. And beneath it all there lies the guilt, every time, of being unable to want a woman in that way. I will be forever haunted by the knowledge that I am doomed to a life of dishonesty and deceit, failing in my job to care for my people, all because I am too weak to fix myself._

_It is a nasty business, our marriage, but we are allied in our efforts to keep it secret. I would have her be happy, for her heart is good at the center, and she would keep our honor as whole as it can be, and so we hide, but to live this lie… ai, it grates upon me so, and he whom I love would be banished and I disowned, should our sickness ever be discovered._

_Erien knew, though. Erien knew everything, for I have always told her all and I knew nothing I did would squander her love for me. And so I told her, and she understood, and she did not hate me, nor did she tell Ada. You see, I could always trust her. She was there, constant, strong, and wise. She always seemed to be ready to help me, and she always seemed able, and she saw things that I did not, and she would not shame me for my tears on the rare times that they came. I was close to Erien in a way that I was to no other, save perhaps the twins, but even they are still in the dark on some things. Erien was never in the dark. I spoke to her because she would always listen, just the way I would always listen to her, and I told her everything. It was the silent agreement of mutual aid._

_And then she left, too, only I saw it with my own eyes. She and I were hunting upon our horses, riding through the trees, and we were laughing, stupid, young fools that we were, and we were heard. In our flight from the monsters that pursued us, her horse tripped and went down beneath her, rolling in a screaming tangle of legs, mane, and blond hair. And she was crushed beneath the weight of her worthy mare and I believe that her death was quick, as painless as possible. If the fall did not end her, then the crushing jaws upon her neck moments later certainly did, and for the brevity of the event I am grateful._

_We never recovered her body, and I know not what happened to it, other than that I ran and when we came back there was only blood upon the ground. I do not like to think on it. _

_There was never anyone quite like my sister. The twins are perhaps the closest I have to her, but I see them too rarely. Our friendship is deeply personal and yet also distant. It is a sad thing, in a way, and yet also in many ways the closest I will ever come to true and complete honest friendship. Perhaps that is the sad thing, then. That Elladan and Elrohir and the best I can do._

_Then, in the loneliness that began to creep upon me after Erien's death, I began to wish for something I knew I had lost. What it was, though, I have never truly discovered. All I knew then was that I had lost it and I wanted it back._

_And then I found it. Or rather, I re-found it. Or it found me again. It can be seen many different ways._

_But no matter how you or I phrase it, the events remain the same. I was on a patrol in the South, at the borders of the darkening patches of trees, treacherous and blackened at heart. We were set upon by orcs and cornered, and I will not go into detail about what it is that I saw. Suffice to say I could not eat or sleep well for many days after. It was the beginning, in a way, of a time that would dull me so much that coming upon the partially devoured carcass of a comrade was no longer a shock or nerve-wracking event. But back then I did not know that there were far worse things, just like I did not truly know that what happened to Erien was rather merciful. I did not envy her then._

_After I returned home to the caves that I hated, back to my wife and the life that was supposed to be mine, after I had been treated for the injuries I had received… after nearly two centuries of silence, I found myself walking yet again, down down down, and listening to the voices, singing without words, and I felt good, good in a way I had not for a long time… and I sat, safe for the first time in the deep places, listening as the voices sang._

- x -

_But that was all long ago, when I was younger, when my life was dominated by pain sharp and jagged. I needed to go down there, to listen to the voices, to keep myself sane. I could not have coped without it, and sometimes I wonder if I am the not only one who comes here. Or perhaps I am just weak. Like the child that I was, scared and needing to hide in the soft darkness. The thought comes upon me too often, and there are too many things pointing to my inadequacy that I feel more every day that it must be true. _

_I still need them, though it is a different kind of pain that plagues me now. The wounds have healed over, but chips and barbs are buried beneath the skin, and they ache constantly. It is not so much the loss of a specific individual, or a specific act of horrific violence… it is the being of it all, the unending heartbreak and death. It is the dreams, the screaming endless in my mind, the fear… all the broken pieces cutting like glass at my sanity. It never leaves, never rests, and each day another family's child is burned or lost. And there is simply no way to grieve for that and not be overwhelmed. I cannot allow myself to be lost to grief, no matter how heavy it is to bear. I cannot allow myself to fail my people in my duties any more than I already have. I must be strong. I must not feel. And therefore I have tried to cage my fëa, lock it in a little box so that it can no longer be touched, and no longer be harmed. And though it is the easiest way, I believe, it is painful. And though I try, and though I say that I no-longer feel, I cannot sleep the way I should. I cannot hold myself together. I have caged myself, yes, but I have done a profoundly bad job of it and it shows._

_The voices are like the herbs that healers give, only for the soul. They sneak inside my mind and dull the pain away until there is nothing of me at all and oh is it wonderful to be numb. It is a release from all the creeping pressure. It is a quieting of my mood, a balance of my mind… it is predictability, sanity, and I have come to need that._

_My wife knows of it, what I do. She can tell when I have been there, and she can tell when the pain starts to peak and I notice it again. Loss of heart is a quiet, dull thing, and I have become accustomed to it, but every now and then it is set off, and it grows, and at these times I must go down or bury myself in a bottle of strong wine. And she sees this and she knows. We often avoid each other, yet she knows me and she sees, and she disapproves. And yet I know that she still loves me. She does, but in an odd way. I am like a child to her, only one she does not fully wish to look after. She will not leave me alone, for she cares too much for my well-being, and yet she wishes that there were someone else to do this task, and I think she resents me for my problems. And that is fair. I would resent me as well._

_But through all I am grateful. She has taken time to look after me in my slight insanity throughout our marriage, and even if it is out of guilt more than true affection I appreciate it. She has always cared, at least until _he_ came. The weeks of our union turned to months, to years, and she was always there, and somehow I was balanced… and then she became pregnant and I was - and still am - ashamedly terrified at the concept of fatherhood. The boy, Evoril, has lived several years now, and yet still I cannot treat him as I know I should, and it is a shame upon myself, for I see that I fail him and it hurts me. He is sired by her mate, this child, and yet I am his father in all but blood, for we must hide our truth from all._

_He is a sweet boy and yet I cannot succeed the way I must. He smiles and I see my lies in his innocent face, and my wife hugs him and laughs, and I know that I am dishonest, as I never wished to be, as is against my will and morality. And I know that I have failed to cure myself of my perversions. I have failed. He is a beautiful, bouncing, happy talisman of everything of which I am most ashamed, and his mother a representation of the love I will never know. She remains, eternally reminding me of that fateful wedding night when I lay upon my bed, still in the dark and quiet of my room, and realized that I would always and forever be alone._

- To Be Continued -


	2. Home

_Author's Note,_

_I am going to keep this quick, but I would just like to say a quick thank you to the few people who have followed and reviewed this story so far… really nice to know someone is actually reading it! If you haven't, please do review, it would mean a lot to me to get a few words letting me know people are reading this, and of course concrit is always helpful and much appreciated. Thank you again for reading._

_I am also sorry that this chapter has taken so long to get up. I had to do some major editing in some parts, of course with the wonderful help of Lindir's Ghost and MyselfOnly. Thanks, guys! However, they have not read the final draft so all remaining mistakes are entirely my own. This may not be perfect, and for that I apologize, but it is the best I can do at the moment so bear with me, I'm still figuring this stuff out :) _

_Again, thank you for reading,_

_-Vanimalion_

- Legolas -

My wrist hurts. It aches, complaining like an angry child. Burning. Hurt. I think that it is broken.

"Let me see that," one of my archers comes to me and she takes my hand in hers. She examines it, turning it this way and that, and I hiss at the sharp stabs of pain. She does not care much for my show of discomfort. She never does. "Aye, you will have to get this wrapped, perhaps splinted." She looks into my face and grins at the scowl she sees there. I do not like splints any more than I like the injuries that they help heal and she knows this. But she is right. Adhanien is always right about this sort of thing. She is one of our many field healers, and she is most skilled here on the borders, in the thick of it. She knows the wounds of battle just as she knows the bow, if not better. I am glad to have her here, down in the dark southern regions of the forest, even though she does not allow me to sway her. She is always bright, even in the darkest of times, and that is a beautiful thing.

She does her best with what she has on hand and uses her authority to declare me incapacitated, something that perhaps even worsens my mood. I do not wish to return home like this, though I know I must. I cannot be of much use to the group with a broken wrist and I am too important to lose should we be attacked, so I understand why she makes me return. I know why my father has granted her this authority. He knows I would stay, and if I stayed I would most likely die. But never the less, I am bitter. There is no true shame in this, I know. We have all been sent back at one point. And yet it is the simple fact of the matter that stings me - that I am returning home early and injured. I hate this weakness.

And today, in light of recent events, my acidity is especially potent. The dankness in the South is enough to dull even the brightest of spirits, but that combined with the relentless brutality of survival amid orcs and spiders, half-starved and cold, and it is enough to put me into an even blacker mood than usual.

Our campaign has been an utter failure, and though it is not our fault it infuriates me still. We were searching for another patrol that went missing, yet we were too late. Oh, yes, we found them, but in pieces. Only blood and bones were left. It is nothing I have not seen before, no, but it is sickening none the less, and this defeat burns. It is a special kind of poison.

And now I am sent home, injured, to tell my father that he has sent us out at such a great risk only to find splintered bones and those inanimate things not useful to whatever manner of vile filth happened to find them. It was a fundamental waste of time, Valar be damned that my nephew was among those lost. He is dead. He was never destined to survive that, none were. I told my father this, but occasionally he seems to care for others and apparently his wonderful, icy grandson was worth the risk. We both knew he was doomed, and yet my father decided to send a troop down to confirm, never truly thinking of the consequences. He is a good king, all things considered, but he does not see some things.

I know that I am fairly angry about this, but I feel righteously so. I have lived with such behavior for most of my life and after a time there is only so much I can give without receiving anything in return. I am sick of it, and I feel that I my anger is not unwarranted. I should be more than just a tool used to chase ghosts.

My father is blind to the living, sending us to our potential doom over those whose fates are secured. He has never truly seen those who remain, at least not while I have been old enough to know him. His heart is full of ghost and dreams and that is all that he loves. It is a lonely and closed world in which he lives, and yet I must serve him there or not at all. It is unfortunate, yet no more than my duty. Duty before all else. And obedience, chasing the dead for my father, for all that it is worth.

In such a mood do I return home, and with such a pathetic injury. The healers decide that my hand does indeed need to be put in a splint, but that is the worst of it and I am resigned. I take the treatment with grace and swear not to remove it. My word is not worth orc spit, but the healer does not know that. She smiles at me kindly and I decide to obey her. It is for my own good, after all, no matter how I despise it.

The halls seem cold and mocking after I leave the infirmary. I have lived here for centuries and yet coming home from the trees has never become any easier. It is like stepping into a cloud of fog and mirrors, everything becomes muddled and complex. At any moment I may be required to smile, to be beautiful, to make sweet and kind political words, love my wife, lie… I will always have secrets, but in these corridors my entire life is stage show.

I do not return to my room and dress, for I have no use for clean and formal clothes now. Instead I walk to find my father so that I may give my report and then slip away… to a bottle of wine and my bed and someone with whom I do not have to lie. I consider seeing Ada on the morrow, for I am tired beyond reason, but whatever sanity and respect for myself I have left tells me that I must do my duty. And so I do, as I knew I would, and walk down the halls to the door of his study.

- Thranduil -

My son is returned, and he is angry with me. This chore has put him in a mood blacker than the pits of Mordor and it bleeds out into everything he says like ink on wet paper. He speaks shortly with curt words. They are dead, he says. All dead, and the rest of his herth will bring back the bones so that I may see them if I wish to, but I do not. I do not need to see more bones. I do not need proof that another one of my descendants has met an untimely end. I would much rather have him simply leave, quietly and without any of this fuss… they are always so cruel in how they choose to die.

Lassë reports his injuries to me. He holds out his hand and I observe it with cool appraisal. It is his right, his writing hand. He will be useless for paperwork, what with this injury. He will be unable to write or sign anything, and he cannot dictate for his life, a problem that has always baffled and infuriated me. I frown in disapproval, for this is quite inconvenient and he knows it. Usually, when he is home, he helps me with matters of state while he rests, but this time it is not so. I let go of his hand and he takes it back to his side rather too quickly.

"I am sorry, Ada. I did not mean to break it." His voice is chilly and tensely quiet. I and look to his face and it is as cold and hard as stone. He is defensive and I feel sadness creeping within me.

"You are close to useless for a few days, are you not?" I cannot help the disappointment from slipping into my voice, though I try to hide it. It is not directly for him, but rather the misfortune of this timing. I do not mean to make him feel that I blame him. There is a particularly large pile of papers, as the treaty with Esgaroth must be rewritten. I have never liked dealing with matters of state any more than he does, and knowing that I will have to sign everything with Elethas is more than I wish to think on at the moment. Yet he does not know of these troubles. He has been away.

"Yes, Ada." He is tense as a bow string, standing there, stock still. He waits for further admonitions. He waits for me to be angry at him, or rather thinks that I already am. He takes things far too personally, if I may say so. He will always blame himself and hide his shame behind his anger.

I smile kindly, like I should, and I soften my voice. "That is fine. You deserve a rest. You are dismissed. Return to me when your hand is well."

He looks slightly surprised but hides it quickly. He bows respectfully, turns, goes through the door, and is gone, just like that. Just like every other day, he is gone and the door is shut behind him.

- Allaë -

The sun still seeps through the windows of his room, set so high upon the mountain's sheer face. It is warm and soft, bathing everything in gold. I am stretched upon a seat cushioned in velvet and I am reading soft poetry. I have a taste for romance, I have found. There is something peacefully surreal about these false and deluding words… they make me feel warm and happy inside, as embarrassing as that is to admit. They are simple and sweet and naïve, and that is what draws me to them. They give me dreams.

I am on my back and I grunt as the book slips from my fingers to fall upon my face. It is small and light, so I feel no pain, but I am slightly disgruntled. I push it off my face and let it rest upon my chest, for perhaps this is a sign that I should be done with my reading for a while. It is so pleasant here. A slight breeze flows through the open windows and I hear the sound of leaves as the sun sinks below the horizon… I close my eyes and I enjoy the voluntary blindness. This is how humans sleep… I find it strange and yet I can see the appeal.

I know not how long I lie so, but the sun has moved and yet I am still there when I hear someone chuckle. I know who that is.

He is returned.

"What are you doing?" He asks. I am not surprised that I did not hear his approach. He has been trained to be silent and I have never been taught to listen well. He is a warrior, I am his valet. I do not need to hear him.

"I am _reading_, of all things," I say with a slight smile as I open my eyes, "But I have nothing else to do when you are away. You cause such trouble that I can do naught but rest and read until you return, so tired am I. It is my only peace." I am jesting and he knows. He cares quite a bit about making sure he is not too much of a bother or a burden. He does not like the idea of needing a servant, of being dependent in any way on someone else. But he is, very much so, and he knows this as well. He would go mad without someone tying him down to the ground, keeping his head upon his shoulders. I sit up. "You have returned early."

He holds up his wrist and I see his splint, horribly clean. No matter, he will see to it that it is dirty soon enough.

"I have been crippled," he says sardonically, but with his next words his tone is humorless, "and sent home. The mission was a failure. They have all been consumed by now, poor bastards. I just spoke with my father and he is most displeased. Or at least he seems to be. He has become rather cross at me for being injured, as now I cannot sign nor write anything for him. He must do the work largely on his own. And with Elethas, of course, which is not much better, given how very _sour_ he is most of the time." He absentmindedly brushes a stray hair from his face as he says this.

I raise my eyebrows as I walk up to him, slipping my fingers underneath his robes as he stands for me. I undo the buttons that would challenge him and pull off the muddy outer-tunic, throwing it in the basket and going into the huge cavern of a closet dedicated solely to all of the attire that he utterly despises. There is much, and I must pick something suitable for him, though he will not wear it. A large part of my job consists of dressing him in things he wants to destroy.

I take my time, choosing his lordly outfit for tomorrow, and when I return he is curled in his favorite chair with a glass of wine, his eyes half closed. This is part of his routine. He returns, speaks with his father, takes off his outer clothes and shoes, and then dreams himself away, drinking a bottle of wine until the late hours of the night. Like every other time he has returned from his patrolling, I go to him. I rub the tension and knots from his shoulders and slowly he relaxes until he is boneless, one arm limp over the back of the chair. Calm, quiet, still. He is beautiful, as he always is, fine, and yet so very, very pale today… ai, Valar, he looks half a corpse…

He glances at me with quiet blue eyes as I massage the muscles in his back. They are tight as bow strings and he winces every now and then when I press on a particularly sore spot. He looks to his windows where he can see the stars and his face becomes glazed and distant. A joint pops under the pressure of my fingers and it seems loud in the silence of the room. It remains. After a moment he speaks.

"What if I… slipped…" His tone is quiet as he looks out his windows over the sea of trees beyond. There is a cliff face there, steep and sheer, going down until the forest eats its way up in a dark tangle of leaves. It is a long, long way down…

"You would be missed," I say, "There are many who value your council."

He smiles softly at this. He likes to be reminded that he is loved and valued. He does not consciously know this. He thinks that he is simply speaking his mind, entertaining his imagination, but he is wrong. It makes him feel better to believe himself good and noble even though it is not always true. His older brother is more important, more influential than he is, he knows this. And he is far from free of sin. But sometimes it is good to forget things and feel as if you are what you wanted to be. But even so, it is an odd thing for him to mention, slipping out his windows… but I suppose a living the way he does for eternity must be a terrifying concept, and perhaps Mandos looks warm and welcoming from his side of things. I do not know. There are some things I will never be able to fathom.

"Are you well?" I ask, and he knows what I mean. He nods.

"Aye, I am well, thank you… just tired." He is flat out, wine bottle half empty on the table and the glass loosely in his fingertips. "I am just very tired."

And after this there is silence. He sleeps sprawled in his chair and the stars glimmer in the sky in cold and mocking silver beauty. There is music in the stars, and there is light and joy and companionship. But here in these halls there are only secrets and deep, dark silence.

- Memories of the Dead: Erien -

_His eyes were very blue that day. _

_We were very young then, in a way. Ada had returned from Mordor not a year before and we had not learned to know him anew. We had left childhood, but only just, and we had innocence and soul left. It was a sad and beautiful thing. We were together then, as we usually were. Training had pulled us apart for the morning and so we were glued even closer than usual when we were reunited._

_Lassë looked at me as we walked down the hall, aimlessly wandering towards our rooms. They were separate by then, but there was only a door between them, so it did not matter. We were still never far from each other. This was a comfort for us both._

"_Erry look," he said, "I picked some flowers," he held them out so I could see. They were wild and fresh, carefully arranged and tied with ribbon I had once stolen from the royal dressmaker's workshop and stashed in one of the secret places. It was fine ribbon, red with silver edges. I was glad he was making good use of it. I told him they were beautiful and he grinned, looking far more childish than he truly was. That happened often. We were of a height, he and I, and we were so similar in appearance that if we wore similar clothing we could not always be immediately distinguished. But though we were inseparable and identical, we could not have seen the world more differently and occasionally it showed._

_He plucked a dry leaf from the bunch and let it fall to the ground. "I am going to give them to Ada," he said quietly, his tone more serious. _

"_Ada is working right now. Besides, you know he has been feeling ill at heart since his return. He may not want to be disturbed." He looked at me when I said this and there was a sober hope on his face. _

"_I know that," he paused, looking at the blooms in his hand, "that is why I will bring them to him, they might cheer him up a bit…" he trailed off and we kept walking. "I will tell him of all the things I did this morning and maybe it will distract him from his work for some time…" He smiled at me but it did not reach his eyes. Looking back in hindsight, I think that even then he knew._

_We walked in silence, buried in our own thoughts, until we reached the door. We glanced at each other and it was like looking into a mirror. He knocked. We waited. There was silence._

"_Do you think he is actually in there?" He asked me. I shrugged, not knowing either way, and he tried the handle. The door swung open._

"_Ada?"_

_He was there, slumped in an exhausted sleep upon his desk. His eyes were closed and he looked strained, even in rest. Tense and tired and worn thin._

"_Ada, I brought flowers for you…" his voice was unsure and his step faltered… "I spent all morning picking them for you in the woods... Ada?"_

_The silence in the room was thin and sickly. I could hear myself breathing. I watched from the doorway as my brother, so much kinder than I, stepped forward and held out a hand full of flowers and hope. Our father lifted his head and looked. He brought his hand up, rubbed his forehead, and fixed his gaze upon his youngest son._

_His hand reached out and he took the flowers, his fingers just barely brushing those of my brother. He held them and he looked, and somewhere in there he got lost in his mind again. He forgot the world and stared inward, examining the workings of his being, living in a dream that none of us could ever see. He was gone again, and his soul was shut behind him. Impenetrable. _

_Lassë was hopeful, rubbing his fingers together unconsciously, as if trying to return to that simple contact. He always did back then. "Fearil was angry at me for picking them when I should have been practicing, but I did not… I did not think you would mind…"_

_Ada put his head in his hands, resting upon the desk. His back rose and fell as he breathed a huge, shaky sigh and I knew that my brother's words had not made it to him. He was already too far away to hear us._

"_Lassë," I whispered, "Lassë come on, we need to go back to our rooms," but he did not move. He only looked up at the impenetrable wall of blackness that was our father and he seemed as if he wanted to touch it, to get inside, though I believe he always knew he never could._

"_Ada…"_

_I walked in and grabbed him, pulling him to the door. He came quietly, yet he could not help but look back until I pulled him out, closing the door behind us. We stood there for a moment in silence. After a time we began to walk again, briskly, and when we were far enough away that we could not be heard, I spoke. _

"_He is not going to hear you, Lassë," _

_He stared at his toes as he walked, deep in his own mind, as if he were listening to something. That was the end of it. He said no more on the matter and neither did I, for there were no more words. He never found the right words for his pain. He never had words, only tears in the night when he thought none could hear him._

_My mother met me after I died, and she told me that tears were never a sign of weakness, but that since birth they had always been proof that one was alive. I do not know whether I agree with her, but if she is right, then no-one ever lived so fully as my brother did. _

_Lassë was not born for this world, for he was created by the Valar as endlessly kind. His heart was too big to fit inside of him and so it flowed out onto every bright and living thing in all of Arda. He loved, he grudged not and gave often and freely. He was created cruelly, cursed with the possession of empathy and feeling so great it became unstable under its own weight, as deep and untamable as oceans. _

- To Be Continued -


	3. Of Colours and Failure

_Author's Note,_

_First of all, many apologies for the lateness of this chapter. It may have mildly killed me. This was perhaps one of the most challenging scenes for me to write for this story, and it took many, many weeks to actually fix it, along with much wonderful help from MyselfOnly. She saved a bit of my life with this one. She and Lindir's Ghost. Many thanks to the both of them._

_Anyway, I just want to make sure everyone knows I will not be abandoning this story. It is actually almost completely written at this point, and just needs to be edited and posted. Hopefully the coming chapters will not take me so long to polish and I'll be posting more regularly. _

_But no worries, readers. I shall be faithful to you, few though you may be, and finish this thing. The worst is (hopefully) behind me. So without further ado, enjoy the next chapter :) _

_- Vanimalion _

- Allaë -

I hold the pallet as he dips his fingers into the paint. Reds, greens, browns… all earth tones, natural pigments, spread upon his fingers and slowly seeping into the white cloth bound about the splint on his wrist. It is already colored with many shades, as I knew it would be. Nothing he owns stays white for long.

He sits cross-legged upon the floor, wearing loose sleeping pants and a shirt that he has left unbuttoned. His hair is free and it falls, slightly mussed, down his back, the ends of it just brushing against the floor. He has paint in his hair. He has paint in everything.

He is in a strange mood, truly a wild, untamed thing at heart, and so crazed. He has seen and done too much and it shows. He is worn thin, as if he has become old despite his youth. But occasionally his suppressed adolescent tendencies come out, like now. This, right now, this is how Legolas is supposed to be, young. This is how he is when he forgets the world and becomes lost in the soft part of his mind… the part of colors and textures and light. This is how he is when he feels that he is safe, and this mood is such a rare occurrence that I will do much to protect it.

He does not hear his voices when he is like this… he does not need them. All he needs is his paint and some time, and the troubles are buried under soft greens and blues and the red of crushed rock. It is so good for him to heal this way. I hope in vain that it never ends, that this moment lasts forever and we can both simply sit here and be happy.

I would love to sit here forever, watching him play in his unique fashion. He cannot hold a brush any better than he can hold a quill, what with his splint, so he uses his fingers to paint. Not that he would use a brush anyway, odd thing that he is. He works with tremendous care, making many tiny dots with his fingertips, rubbing and blending small pools of color until eventually there is a smooth line. I once asked him why he did this instead of investing in a more efficient tool for lines - to which he answered that he did not want to distance himself from his art. He likes to be connected to the colors with which he works, even if it means that he must sacrifice time and energy to do so. He will do it happily for the joy of feeling the liquid slip upon his skin.

He will never use a canvas, either, as he prefers to paint his rooms. Everything, everywhere. He has always done this, I am told, since he was old enough to walk on his own. He started painting things one day and then just never stopped, covering every bare surface with color. And when he ran out of space, he started again, adding another layer. He has moved rooms more than once since he began, but it has never stopped him. I think he enjoys the variation.

His current room is quite unique, and not just because every wall is painted like a forest with strange, dream-like lines. The main chamber has only three walls. It is cut into the rock very high up on the mountain, and one side opens up to the sky. There is a thin balcony, but after that the floor falls away into a sheer cliff. There are ancient windows framed in cast iron that slide up and down in rusted tracks. They used to be plated in gold, but one night under the stars Lassë decided he needed to use it in his painting and chipped it all off. Since then they have been there, decaying, supposedly shielding him from ill weather. Not that they do any good, for he has kept his windows open for so long that some of them have stuck there, and in other places plants have grown in, and he is too kind to dislodge them. They creep slowly, climbing up the walls and around the posts of the bed. He paints the leaves sometimes, and that makes him happy.

"Allaë?" He looks up at me standing above him. "Can you please bring me another shade of green?" He smiles softly, almost childishly. His eyes are big and blue, asking for my help. He is always happy when he is painting. He cannot work otherwise.

"Of course. Would you like a darker or a lighter shade?"

He turns back to the section of wall upon which he is working and his eyebrows come together in a focused frown. There is a small wrinkle between them that makes him look particularly like his father, although I have never told him this and I am not sure he knows. Perhaps it is best if he does not. He is like that for a few minutes as I wait.

"Dark." He says, finally. "Like ivy leaves, only with brown in it as well. Perhaps the new one."

I set the pallet down and walk to an open door that leads to the room in which all of this is stored. Papers stacked to the ceiling, ink, quills, a harp, books filled with stories and poems, and a wall of glass bottles full of powders, waiting for water to turn them to paint. Several hundred years of creative exploration in one room. It is both magical and intensely unpleasant.

I look at the wall of paint. There are hundreds of bottles, and they are not organized at all. Green is next to red, brown next to blue, light and dark everywhere… it is horrible.

"Which is 'the new one'?" I call back. This is very typical behavior, not being specific about paint. It is part of what makes him Legolas, and I find it strangely endearing, even if it _does_ make something deep inside of me itch with rage at such vagueness.

"Oh!" He sounds surprised, "I remember now, that one is in the bathing chamber being reconstituted in that wash bucket. Scoop some of the thick silt out from the bottom, if you will, that will do perfectly."

I sigh and walk to the bathing chamber - which is the only room that has never been purposefully painted - and find there the bucket of green water. I take a copper cup from a shelf on the wall and dip it in, doing what he asked and bringing forth a smooth green sludge. I carry it to him.

"Hannon le," he says, smiling, and there is true gratitude there. And then "Allaë… this is my drinking cup…"

"You may use your hand to drink."

He looks at me incredulously, holding it up to show me his splint, which he is not allowed to get wet.

"Your _other_ hand."

He sighs and grins and shakes his head in bemused resignation, and then he goes back to painting and I watch.

We carry on like this for a while, and he moves less than a foot. It is slow work but it is peaceful, and at some point I sit next to him and he begins to hum tunelessly, watching the colors on his fingers form shapes. It is grass he is painting, and one would think that it would be quick, but every long blade is crafted, shaded, perfected by a hundred tiny spots of color.

It is a long time that I am here watching him. There is something methodical and meditative about the way his fingers move, the focus in his eyes, the inaudible hush of air as he breathes. His hair falls about his face as he leans in closer to the wall, bringing his eyes near and squinting, lips slightly parted, completely enthralled by his work.

A blue eye flashes to peer at me through the curtain of gold, and he smiles. He reaches for the palette and as I try to get it for him my hand slips in the paint. It is soft and cool on my skin, smooth but for a few small bits that have dried into little stones. He says nothing to this new development, though I thought he would. Instead he looks as if he has seen something. He takes my hand in his and, with the care of any fine artist, presses my fingers to the wall. It is as if he has discovered a whole new color. My hands are different, unique and novel and exotic. These walls have never felt my fingers touch them in this way, and he has never thought to use me thus. The print of my skin is different than his, a new shape that can be made no other way. It is all new, it is all freshly seen and thought and discovered, and he loves it.

He looks at me, at the wall, and he smiles. Not a pretty, polite smile, but a true one. Big and honest and as joyful as I know I could never be over such things. This accidental splash has overjoyed him, and I am reminded why it is that after all these years I remain. He smiles, and I understand that what he sees is, at the heart of it, beyond my comprehension. That to him any accident can become beautiful, any mishap a cause for joy, all the world alive at every imperfection.

He comes out when he has forgotten. He comes out when he feels the world will not cut him away. He lets his love shine when fate will not steal it from him. Every day it grows darker, rarer, more cautious. But sometimes, after a spell of quiet, he takes off his mask and I get to see who he really is when he is not weighed so much, when he is as he should be. He is, somewhere deep inside, eternally young, in love with the beauty of the world in a way that I never will be. It is astounding and clear, powerful and joyful and fragile, and nothing has ever felt both more sacred and more in danger, and I know that nothing I will ever see can be more beautiful than this.

- x -

After I have lost all track of time, after the world has frozen and I have watched him paint with my fingers for a thousand years, there is a rather alarmingly urgent knock at the door. We pause and look at each other, and he lets my hand go and returns to his colors, not quite meeting my eyes. I wish to wipe my hands upon his already stained shirt but think better of it. Now is not the time. I grab a cloth as I walk to open the door, rubbing the wetness from the tiny cracks in my skin.

"Tell them that I am unavailable," he says absentmindedly as he begins his slow work on the next blade of grass, carefully squishing the dot of green, pushing it outward with the pressure of his fingertip.

"Of course,"

But when I open the door to shoo away the unwanted guest, I see his son Evoril, tears running down his face like so many salty raindrops. I do not let him in, he comes on his own and runs to his father like a tiny storm, upset and unstoppable.

Legolas turns at the sound of the boy's footsteps and he is surprised. He has barely a moment before Evoril crashes into his arms, sobbing.

"Ai, what is the matter?" He asks, alarmed. He looks up at me, confused and slightly panicked as he ever is when something like this happens. He has no idea what to do, though he pats the child's back awkwardly, trying not to cover the clean clothing in dark green stain. He is always this way, and it never ends well. "What has happened?"

I feel my contentment slowly dripping away, now that the spell has been broken. I feel us both returning, and the despair inside me is creeping like a great poisonous bank of fog. I know what will happen here, and it exhausts me. _So it begins again._

"H-hamin… he h-has stopped m-m-moving!" Evoril can barely string the sentence together, so powerful are his sobs. I groan inwardly. Of all things, my prince knows nothing of comforting others. I do not think he received much attention himself when he was young, and that is indeed a tragedy, but he only adds to the problem. He has experienced such suffering himself, though he tries to hide it from me. He knows this pain, he should know what he is doing. He should see. He should understand.

But he does not.

"Ah…" Is all that my prince has to say, eyes wide and unsure.

I glare furiously at him because I see that he has to think for a moment before remembering that Hamin is - or was - the boy's beloved kitten, but he does not see me. He is looking down at Evoril, for at least he tries. When he sees, he tries. He desires so much to do well, and every time he falls short. He is perpetuating this cycle of cold and distant ellyn and though I love him dearly, I cannot shake my anger at his inability to correct things

Lassë pauses for a minute, and when he speaks his voice is oddly soft and formal. He is so very uncomfortable with this. "He has stopped moving… do you mean that he has… died?"

The child looks up at him with eyes huge and green and teary, not yet knowing anything of the world at all. They make eye contact, and Legolas looks at him as if he were older, as if he could understand.

"He is asleep and will not wake up, am I correct?"

Evoril does not speak, perplexed even through his sadness. He does not understand, but he nods anyway.

"Then he has most likely died." He tries to say it as carefully as he can, softly, but the words sound too matter-of-fact, too empty of feeling.

"But why is he still asleep?"

"Well…" he pauses and glances up at me only to quickly avert his gaze from mine as though burned. Perhaps my expression is too foul. No matter.

"If he has died then he is gone. He…" he takes a breath, closes his eyes for a second, then opens them again, and there is a soft and bitter knowing there. "He left." 

"Is he coming back?"

"I do not know for certain, but I think not." He tries to touch the small blond head in another slightly clumsy show of comfort, but Evoril pulls away.

"No!" He yells, "He is coming back! He is, he is!" Legolas reaches for him but his hand is shoved away and the boy takes off running, back through the door and away, gone as fast as he came.

Lassë is to his feet but he does not follow, looking from me to the door and back again like a cornered deer.

We are both quiet.

"That was rather cold of you." I say flatly after it is obvious that he will not break the silence or move any time soon.

He looks to me with anger in his eyes, suddenly alive again. "What would you have me do, Allaë? Tell him that cats go to the Halls of Mandos and are reborn? Feed him more lies, only to have him disappointed later? What else should I tell him other than the truth? He needs to understand, and the sooner he doe the better." He is defensive, and perhaps rightly so, but I feel the need to tell him when he is causing harm, when he is showing his ignorance.

"There are many other things you could have done that would cause less harm. Do not do… _that_." I sigh. The mood is gone. The carefree, simple, natural state in which he has been has washed away and he is his usual bitter self now. It makes my heart clench to see him like this… his mind is unpredictable and wild, swinging from one extreme to another in the blink of an eye. And I see all, for he does not hide much from me. "I understand that you have always had a sense of what death is, but he has obviously not reached that point. Distract him, play with him, teach him something. Lie to him. You lie to everyone else, you can lie to a child to stem his tears. He would not remember."

"Do you expect me to teach him how to grieve? How am I supposed to do that?" He sounds stressed and slightly panicked. He likes to know what to do and how to do it, but when it comes to speaking to children he has no example. For a moment I am very, very angry with his father.

I do not expect him to teach anyone how to grieve, as he does not know himself. Yet I do not dare say that. He will tell me I know nothing of pain and loss, nothing of grief, as if running to voices only he can hear and letting them cast spells on him counts as grieving. It is an escape, a distraction, not a healing method, though he says otherwise. He cheats and believes himself winning. Yet I do not say this. I do not want to fight with him, and I can see that he is agitated by the incident and my following remarks. I take a deep breath and calm myself. It is not his fault that he is lacking in this area. My anger towards him is unwarranted, truly. And yet it sits there in defiance of my logical mind, tainting my every thought of him and this false son of his.

"It hurts a child when their parent is cold or distant to them. All you must do is _try_ to reach out and empathize with him. Do not push him away, do not make him suffer that pain."

He looks at me, and his eyes are like a storm-tossed sea, wild and mixed and confused. There is fear and uncertainty there. It is the one thing that really scares him, but for good reason. Legolas should not raise children.

He turns away and says not another word for a few minutes, but gathers up his paints and takes them to his storage room. He sets them down on a table and leaves them there, and I make sure to remember where they are for when he wants them again and has forgotten, for I know he will.

He walks over to the edge of his room and looks over the side, down the cliff to the forest below. His happy mood is gone now, and he is back to being icy, still, and oceans away.

"Would you like anything else?" I ask, for we are back to prince and valet again, and taking care of him is my job. I get no answer and I need no answer. I know what I must do. This has always and will always fall upon me, and all I can do is try not to get too angry with him. He cannot change.

- Lassë-

I feel that I need to scream. Loudly, and with force. Perhaps if I do it just right, if I put all of myself into the sound, I will be numb, like the voices. Empty and at peace.

I am stirred into a froth, for I do not know what to do, and it is killing me. I do not understand children, and though I want to help I feel that I only ever do harm. I would fix it if I knew how, but it has not come naturally to me. And these things are _supposed_ to come naturally. Who does not know how to comfort a child? I do not understand it, and it seems as if this is just another way in which I am falling apart at the seams. It is shameful.

I cannot understand it. No matter how I try, I cannot do what I need to, and the fact that Allaë does not see this only adds to my discomfort. I need his help, I know, but does he truly think I do not know myself? That I believe I can bear to feel for another? Does he wish me to take on the grief of all and hold it for them? I know that Evoril needs that. He cannot handle pain yet, he is too young. Yet I cannot take it from him, no matter how much I wish I could. I can give him other things. I can teach him the ways of bow and arrow and knife. I can teach him to hunt, to sing, to paint, to kill. Yet I cannot teach him to bear his grief. I can barely hold my own in hand.

But Allaë does not feel this. Or if he does, he refuses to show it. He is standing naught but ten feet from me, thinking, always there, watching me, judging me and finding me wanting, as anyone in their right mind should. I know that he is there. He never _ever leaves_. Even when he is gone he is still here, sanding as a black silhouette at the edge of my loneliness. Knowing, and always just out of reach.

I know what he thinks of me, and I know what he thinks of the voices - I have seen his face when he thinks I am not looking, heard his mutter when he believes I cannot hear. He disregards this, says I am hallucinating, for he thinks he understands more than I. But he knows nothing, and he has heard nothing. Nothing of the voices in the dark, nothing of their songs, and his soul has felt not the touch of them. And yet he speaks as if he knows.

_You know nothing, Allaë. _

Nothing at all, and yet far, far too much.

And he is always there. He never leaves. Even when I know he turns and walks away, when the door clicks behind him, he is here.

_He never leaves._

- To Be Continued -


	4. Regrets

_This chapter beta-read by MyselfOnly. Great big thanks to her, she is fabulous :) _

_Any remaining mistakes are purely mine. _

- Allaë -

I love Lassë dearly. I have served him for centuries, yet occasionally he slips into a mood of depressive selfishness that angers me beyond words. He has not sent me to fix this, I do it out of the kindness of my heart. But I would not need to had he chosen to be responsible for his actions instead of indulging himself in his darkness.

My feet make no sound as I stride briskly down the hallway to his wife's rooms. They are technically his rooms as well but he rarely uses them, a habit all other staff members attribute to simple introversion. This is an easy lie to swallow, much easier than the truth of his personal life. I smile dryly, for this situation is so warped it has passed simply horrible and come to cold, black humor. Or perhaps it is Legolas' bitterness rubbing off on me. Ai Valar, Lassë.

He sometimes makes me despair.

I stop outside Miriel's door and knock politely. I wait a few minutes and then she opens it a crack and peers out to see who visits her. At the sight of my face she opens the crack wider and crosses her arms dourly. She is displeased to say the least. "What do you need of me?" She asks in a clipped, formal tone. I believe that she dislikes me. No, I _know_ that she dislikes me. She makes it quite clear.

I bow deeply under her accusing gaze. I am always careful to be especially respectful around her. "I have cme to ask upon the health of the young Evoril, My Lady. I happened to witness the unfortunate event that caused him distress and -"

"I know of what you speak, Allaë," She cuts me off, "He has informed me of the things his father told him and I can assure you I do not need to hear them again. I have spoken with him and put him to bed early, and I intend for him to rest well tonight. He is well enough, though his grief is great for one so young." She unconsciously brushes a stray lock of hair behind her ear but it is not a vain movement. Somehow it makes her look older, tired, and when she speaks again there is a note of blankness in her voice, "If you would be so kind as to carry a message for me, I should like to have my… _husband_," she puts a careful stress on the word, pausing, "know that I understand that he has much work to do, shut up in his room as he is, but I must speak with him about his behavior. I will expect him to come to me tomorrow."

I nod and bow, my hand upon my chest. "I shall inform him, My Lady."

She smiles wanly, sighs, and we share a brief and awkward silence before she speaks again, "No, tell him I shall call upon him myself, in the morning before he can run away." Humorless, she knows that taking matters into her own hands is wise.

I blink and make a tiny, stilted bow. "As you wish."

"Thank you. Please wait here a moment, I have something you may appreciate." She turns back into her rooms and closes the door. After a few minutes she returns again, a jar in her hand. Her face is slightly softer now, though still frosty. "Here," she hands the container to me, "this is a special tea from Imladris that I had delivered. Give it to him, he will appreciate its calming effects. It should quiet his mind, and that will benefit all of us." Her smile is tighter than it should be, and I know that she desperately hopes that this will help, for reasons that are far more selfish than either of us will openly acknowledge.

She is weary and haggard and does not want to take care of him anymore. Though she and I may have different feelings regarding the prince, we are in some ways in the same boat, and therefore I can empathize with her. I know how she feels, for I have felt such resentment myself many times. Yet our situations differ in one key point: she cannot leave as I can. I do not understand where she finds the strength to do this for eternity, but I envy and respect it.

I turn and begin to walk back, jar of dry leaves in hand, but I have only gone a few steps before she calls for me again. I turn, see her run her hand through her loose hair, and she sighs. There is less in her voice when she speaks. It is softer, more authentic, and infinitely more sad. "I am truly grateful that you will give him the tea. I think we both hope that it will help." Though still rather dark, her voice is not sharp. It is solidarity against a common struggle, and if that is as close to friendship as we will ever come, then so be it. She may not like me, but in this we are allies, and she is glad to not be alone. We both understand exactly what we do, and that allegiance - however thin - transcends our mutual dislike.

"Of course, My Lady," I bow, and her smile is a little more natural. She nods, turns, and closes the door. She is gone and I am alone. I can forgive her faults and her bitter attitude, for I understand. She sees the mistake she has made in this endeavor, yet it cannot be fixed, and she must watch the ripples of her choices spread out to her son, the most precious thing in her life. She knows that it will ruin him, and for that she can never forgive any of us.

- Legolas -

_We sat on the edge of a bell tower. Where it was, exactly, I remember not, but it was before we went north. I did not pay much attention back then. Everything was our playground._

_Our feet hung from the edge, dirty and bare. It was high, so very very high, and we loved it. We were alone, for it was night and the moon was a sliver, and Elladan and Elrohir were always too afraid to go up there in those early days. They were used to living on the ground, and though they did well in the boughs and heights as all elves do, they were never truly at home there. We got them to come up once, after they had been with us for a while, but they never loved the rooftops as we did. But Erien and I came alive, always, and we cared not that we were forbidden access to this tower. No-one ever saw us climb it, or if they did they never said so. It was our place, and no-one else ever came up there at night. _

_She had stolen some small pies that night, wrapped them in paper and shoved them in the little bag she carried on her back. They were blueberry, and though they were slightly crushed they were delicious there at the top of the world, under the stars that shone like a million silver eyes in the blackness above us. _

_We ate with our fingers, sticky and filthy. Our hair was tangled, our clothes ripped, our feet muddy and calloused. Everything was as it should have been, and there in the privacy of our height and darkness we could speak, and many whispered words were shared and never repeated elsewhere._

_That particular night was cool and windy as autumn came, the leaves falling from the trees below us. Red and gold turned to silver and grey in the light of the stars. We sat, we ate, and we watched the world change. _

_She broke the silence as she always did: bluntly. "You should have been a girl." She said, and I nearly choked on my pie._

"_What?" Surely she must have been jesting, but when I looked at her I could tell she was trying to say something, simply doing a poor job at directness, which was odd for her._

"_Aye, you should have been a girl. And I should have been a boy, and then everything would be fine." She brushed her hair behind her ear agitatedly. _

"_But I do not want to be a girl…" my voice had trailed off, for I had no idea what she was saying. "Besides, I am not a girl, and you are not a boy, what does it matter?"_

_She looked at me in stillness. "I am braver than you," she said after a time, and I did not refute it. "And I am harder than you, too. You are so sweet and kind and good, you should have been the girl." She flicked a blueberry into the air, watched it fall out of sight. She sighed and the fight went out of her and she was naught but a bony elfling dangling her feet from the top of a tower. "Then you would be the one who had to wear a dress, and I could be the prince and do all the stately, princely work and important things. You would be so good at all of the other stuff, and I would be able to do something worthwhile. And it would be better anyway. Everything would be fine if we had come out differently." She so often felt older than I, but that night she felt just as confused and vulnerable as I was. She was a child too, and for once she was showing me._

"_But those things are boring," I said, because I could not hear her, "you do not _want_ to do them."_

"_For you, aye, but you _have_ to. Neither of us have a choice in the matter, neither of us have a say in whether we fit what is expected of us, only we are on different ends of the problem. We should have switched. The Valar must have been mistaken. They must have put us in the wrong bodies." She sounded dull and despondent, and I could not understand it. I told her after that that the Valar did not make mistakes, and she looked at me with a blank, desolate expression. "You do not understand yet. You do not even know. You do not see the problem. Ai Valar, you do not even know that there _is_ a problem." She said and sighed, shaking her head in defeat. She swung off the edge and left me there in silence._

_She never brought it up again, but I think I know what she meant. _

_I think I know what she was trying to say, and I am saddened that I did not see it then. I did not know, and the chance passed me by. So it goes. We were even more similar than I thought, and now that I have realized this, I miss her even more. She knew me before I knew myself, she saw me before I ever chanced to look, and that day she tried to speak to me, to say she knew, to say she understood. She tried to say that she was like me in a way, that she could never fit either, but I could not hear her. She saw that, too. I could not see then, and she accepted that. She knew me, inside and out, and she loved me anyway. I feel the Valar took from me the only one who would hear me and know what I was saying. _

_I have, somehow, always known of death. It has always made sense to me, even that of mortal beings. I knew. I understood. But Erien understood life. She understood hearts and minds and souls. She understood why we were here and how we fit together, and so she understood how we could be pulled apart. Erien saw the workings of elvish nature long before her time to do so. She comprehended then so much more than I ever could, and for all her wisdom it makes me sad, for she never had the chance to know innocence and ignorance the way I did. She knew that the darkness had found a way inside us, and she knew what would come, and she knew what would happen to her in the end. The Silvans are fair when it comes to the differences between ellith and ellyn, but she was royal, and the culture of our Sindarin family had already begun clipping her wings. _

_She saw it coming. She knew what was going to happen. She saw, and then she died, and death was the greatest gift ever to be given to her._

- Thranduil -

He moves differently with his splint, I have noticed. It is the first time in days that I have seen him, and it is strange. Such a small injury, yet he is always aware of it. He is careful and fearful, and that is something I can easily understand. Yet it is painful for me to see him this way. I do not wish to see my child in pain and I have tried my entire life to spare him from it. Yet I am powerless to stop him from changing. The bright, happy elfling I had in my mind has vanished slowly and quietly over the years.

He looks and acts much like Oropher, only he is far more kind. That is the distinguishing factor between them. They are both noble, brave, and loyal with a sense of duty stronger than any other's. They would both die to protect those they love. Yet my Lassë is kind. Of all things, he is kind, and in his heart there are naught but good intentions.

Legolas may be kind, but my father was honest to a fault. Whatever his flaws, he was true to his word and had naught to hide, and I admired that about him. I have striven to reflect this in myself. I have tried to be honest to those around me, and I admit there have been times where I fell short of my ideals, but I have tried. I have done as much as I can, and shared all that I must.

It is strange, then, to know that after several centuries my own son has not done the same. I am not angry with him, not truly. No, I am empty. He has hidden himself from me all these years. I no-longer know what is truth and what is part of the play, for he has pulled the wool over even my eyes. That is what bothers me, that I know of mysterious secrets from a simple slip of tongue too close to my ear. A mistake made by his servant, a few words here, there, whispered when they think I cannot hear, and I know that something is amiss. I know not what it is, but he conceals something important, incriminating. It is not the fact that he is dishonest that disturbs me, but that he feels that he must be, that he must hide to protect himself. The action itself might be dishonorable, aye, but not so damning as the truth that something I have done has made him this way. Because there is no other reason, for as I have said, Legolas is kind. He does not act out of spite. He does not do these things to harm.

I feel a hole opening up somewhere, now that I can see that obviously I have failed him. How could he ever believe he could lose my love if I had not?

But I already know everything I need. It is clear as the day, visible in my every action, and all speculation is irrelevant to the bitter truth. I am cold, I am quiet. I never touch him.

I did this.

Failure always lays heavy upon my heart, but this pain is like no other. I take a sip of my wine. It is fine but it seems tasteless. I rub my eyes, put my head in my hands. My shoulders hurt and my rooms are too quiet. The air is still and cool and wet, and only the crackling of the fire fills my ears. Huge, cold, stone rooms bedecked with tapestries and rich velvet. All empty_. I did this._

I am so tired. I have not rested well in a week. I sit deeper in my chair, reluctant to move. These rooms are all empty. My bed is cold. It is dark, I am alone. Everyone is dead, and even those who live yet are leaving in their own quiet, subtle ways. Only I am left to fill this emptiness. Only my failures and I remain.

I wonder what might have been, had Legolas and I each grown up in times of peace. If we had been shielded from war, would we be close the way father and son are supposed to be? Would he confide in me, ask my advice on matters of friendship and love? Would we ride together as friends, laughing like children? The images flow through my mind one after another, what could have been, _should _have been. What would have been if I had made it so.

It should have been that way. We should be close, together as family. I like to imagine that I would have done it right, had something been different.

But these thoughts are useless. I know what I have done, and though he is far away indeed, Legolas lives yet. I can bring him back, I can fix it... whatever I have done wrong, I must fix it. And I swear that I will. I swear to myself under my breath, alone in my rooms, that I will repair the damage. But even as the words pass my lips I hear the futility in them. It is too late. I will not succeed. It is too little, and too late for both of us.

- To Be Continued -


	5. The Stuff of Dreams

_A Note on Character Assignment:_

_All sections with character names at the top (see pretty much all previous sections for examples) are written directly from that character's point of view, as you probably already know. If a section does not have a character name at the top, it is unassigned. These sections are told by no specific character. They are almost always pointed towards one person, but the words are not meant to be written directly. Take them as they come, and focus on the writing and the imagery. These sections are either abstract or poetry, so take them as they are and make of them what you will. _

_Thanks for keeping an open mind - this story means a lot to me and I enjoy taking artistic license to write it in some less-traditional ways. It is an experiment, exploration, adventure, and I hope you can enjoy it as much as I do :) _

_As always, this chapter went through the wonderful filter of MyselfOnly, who tries to make sure I do not post tripe. Big thanks to her. Sending some public well-wishes and hopes that she feels better soon :)_

_-V_

- The Stuff of Dreams -

_I fall into reverie in his room, book of poems resting upon my chest as I wait for his return. I wake suddenly in the dead of night to find him sitting next to me, so close I can feel him breathing on my face. He smells of sweat and black blood. Dangerous and awake, eyes huge in a face that should have been fuller._

"_Allaë," he whispers, "Allaë, wake up, I want to you to be awake. Wake up." The dim light of the fire turns his pupils into deep, swallowing wells._

_Sleep is wrong._

"_What is it? What is the matter?" I ask, rubbing the last vestiges of dream from my eyes._

"_I do not wish to be alone tonight," He whispers, feather soft._

_I get up, run him a bath, sit out by the embers until he returns, dressed in soft cotton. He lights candles, illuminates the room with warmth that makes the wounds of war upon him thick and dark, like some macabre sort of artwork upon parchment skin. I can see the blue of delicate veins in his wrist._

"_Speak to me," he says. He wants me to say the words that would heal him, to make well all that has failed him. He wants me to soothe all the wounds and clean him of sin, a task to silence the Valar._

"_Sing to me," he might have asked. He comes to me broken, bleeding inside and hiding from the world. He comes to me and asked me to heal him. "Sing me my Song, and take everything away."_

_Save me._

_He breaks, he clutches me as one shattered and lets everything flow out, seeping into every pore in my skin and infecting me. He lets out an ocean of pain, of self-loathing and darkness, and I drown in it. He speaks endlessly, tells me every cruel deed he has witnessed, every act of violence detailed in desperate catharsis. _

_With open arms and heart I shelter him. I bear the weight, carry the burden willfully. I give consent to be the outlet of his poison, the knife that drinks the polluted blood. And everywhere I am being tainted. _

_Save me._

_Give me the stuff of dreams, where hope is more than an illusion. Where bloodlust turns to beauty and everything is washed away by the rain._

_Sleep is wrong._

_Taken in by helpless delusions and empty promises of eternal bliss, faith corrosive salve for shards and split souls. Sing me your sweet song of comforting deceit. Sing to me, save me, tell me I will not be sick forever. _

_Sleep is wrong._

_I am cut open and discarded, vivisection revealing the darkness in me spreading like a disease, turning me to stone from the inside out. I will be in your heart, songs sung in sleep. Standing still, sicksilent specter painted in black and silver. I am what you have made of me. I am your reflection._

_When everything comes together, and all your troubles have faded to white, you will find me._

_Banish your delusion_

_Wake up_

_Open your eyes_

_And see_

_I am your reflection._

_I am the truth of your dreams._

- Allaë -

Is this what I have been waiting for? Has Miriel delivered peace into my hands?

As if in a trance I let the dried leaves fall through my fingers, rustling as they settle back into the jar. So powerfully beautiful, holding such deep, dark hopes. Perhaps this will give me the respite I so crave, the sanity I require. Let me regain control, stay afloat. I have been drowning alone with my prince, and Miriel - forever the bitter saint - has held out her hand to help us. 

He was sane when I met him, back when he first came into the north. He was not completely together even then, but he was better than he is now. We had good times, he and I. Truly good times, before he got married. But then he cracked, and now the darkness in him has touched me as well. It has spread, and the despair in him has begun to take root in my heart, as if there is a great pit of suffering inside of him, sucking all life into its blackened, crippled core. But then he has always needed me, and perhaps I am to blame, for this imbalance is not his doing alone. I have given my light completely unto him too often. I consented to this, in a way.

I noticed it not a hundred years after he was wed. It had been a long time in coming, and I suppose I had always seen but chosen to ignore the truth, which is that he is using me. He is very good at managing himself, I do admit. He keeps himself balanced impressively well most of the time. But when he slips and falls, he falls very hard, and he falls upon me. And for years I have been there to catch him.

And he knows that I will never think him weak, not in the way of most. It takes so much strength to see such violence and not let your soul wither and die, your spirit go flat. I do not run for the healers. I take him in my arms and do my best to heal him.

I once asked him why he came to me instead of going to the voices. He took a moment to think, finally saying that the voices cannot touch the darkness that comes from within. For that he requires a different medicine: Life. Me.

_Save me._

He asks me to be Erien.

And I wonder if he would love her as much if she were still alive. If they grew up together, changed together, and if his memories of her were no longer preserved under a soft veneer of a few hundred years of postmortem idolization. Every moment he spends thinking of her, he has a choice: To see her as divine or to see her as real, and like all desperate souls he will see her as divine. 

Being dead, Erien is capable of achieving true perfection. Only a subtle and frayed shroud in life, this quality flourishes after death, when the face and mind live on only in memory. Every sin and ill deed can be carefully, discreetly erased, every kind word and wisdom highlighted, enhanced until there is nothing left but a golden glow. A beautiful, surreal, utterly impossible representation.

If Erien had lived, Legolas would have learned to see her. His eyes would have opened and he would have seen the dark holes, twisted roots, and hypocrisies in her character just as clearly as anyone else's. He would have seen the truth and imperfection inherent in all of us, and she would have been just as suffocatingly real as everyone else. 

But she died before he could open his eyes. She died before he could realize that she was no more a god than he was, and so he never learned. Erien died and achieved perfection, and no matter how hard I try, no matter what I do or say, I will never be enough to fill that hole.

But he chose me. He chose me and he asks me to stretch and fill the gap. Me. Only me. I am destined to fail, and yet I must try.

He visits his voices when he needs to, but when he has no time, or when his mood is such, he falls on me. He falls on me for comfort and support, and every time I give it.

Once, after a particularly bad evening, I spoke to him and threatened to leave should he not fix himself and find a balance. I said cruel, hurtful words in my anger with him, and in his pain he lashed back. Our fight was hot and cutting, and in the end I told him that he was worthless and selfish, and that I was done.

We did not speak for a time after that, but neither did I leave. I have stayed, though his fits of despair have not subsided. And every time I am the only one who knows, as if living with a cloud of almost constant gloom was not taxing enough. It is getting wearisome. I am exhausting myself.

Only me_._ Only I have been privy to his soul-purging. Only I have shielded him from the healers' worries, gazes, and strange questions. Only I am there to stem the flow of wine, pull the knives from his hands, prevent him from cleansing himself of the impurity he sees in his heart. Only me, and I ask for little in return.

He asks me to be his Erien, his everything, and I try. Yet never has he thrown open his arms and offered to be mine.

And I do love him, even after all of this. I love him more than almost anyone still alive, although I still cannot comprehend exactly why. I love him even though he hurts me, falls hard upon me, and uses me. After everything, I still care for him just as much. It is not his fault he cannot hold himself up, and in the moment I am always willing to help him. Whether for love or masochism or some mix thereof, I give him all that he needs with hands wide open and outstretched.

But this does not mean that I do not wish these things away. I care for him deeply, aye, and I am bound here by neither oath nor duty. My presence is a choice, but that does not mean that I do not resent him in the days between these emotionally taxing nights. It does not mean that I do not wish to hurt him back sometimes, or just make him a bit easier to live with.

Only me, and I can do it no more. I have tried my best and I cannot continue. I will go to great lengths to take some of this weight from my shoulders. I love him, aye, but I can hold him alone no longer.

I drop the leaves into the hot water and watch them steep, dripping in honey to offset the bitter flavor. I want him to drink it. I want him to drink it all and become fuzzy and stupid. I want him to be quiet and docile and not hurt me when he panics. I want him to stop dreaming and stop screaming into his sheets every other night he is here.

Through the years I have tried a myriad of other drugs and none worked. I pour more leaves in. The first time was daring, nerve-wracking, but every time after it became simpler and more hopeless, for nothing ever changed. This time it is very, very easy. I have done this countless times, slipping substances into his food and drink in an attempt to heal him myself. Through some insanity I have a shred of hope left that this may work. Maybe, finally, I will have peace with him.

- In Awe -

"_I am so very grateful"__  
><em>_Words I will never be brave enough to speak__  
><em>_Hung forever on the glib tip of my coward's tongue__  
><em>

___White, the shade of Death's lullaby_

_Your mien is a rainbow in calming grey__  
><em>_Keeping me alive__  
><em>

___I am so grateful__  
><em>_For poisoned tongue__  
><em>_And cutting words__  
><em>_For stability and sanity__  
><em>_Strong as old bitter oak__  
><em>_Shelter me__  
><em>

___I am open__  
><em>_With heart - I have never known to show__  
><em>_Devotion__  
><em>_Syllables I cannot make myself speak, say__  
><em>_With wish for you to hear__  
><em>_And know_

___How much words will never be able to express__  
><em>_Wounds I have callously made__  
><em>_But do not know how to dress__  
><em>_Soul cut with emotional__  
><em>_Neglect__  
><em>

___I am in a debt I know will never be repaid__  
><em>_Open wounds__  
><em>_And a hundred other bridges__  
><em>_That will never be remade__  
><em>_I am astounded__  
><em>_That you would stay until the end of days__  
><em>_With open arms and quiet heart__  
><em>_Even when I am crazed__  
><em>

___I am in awe__  
><em>_That I am still welcome to your friendship's touch__  
><em>_Even though I will never be able to tell you__  
><em>_That to me__  
><em>_You will always be enough_

_And I am _

_Silently_

_In awe_

_I never knew I could be this_

_Pure_

_Eternally grateful_

- To Be Continued -


	6. Do Not Go Gentle

_Quick update: Between the last chapter and this one I decided that this story needs to be split into parts, even though it's quite short. There will be either two or three parts, but this was not a piece of the original plan so I think it needs mentioning. This chapter ends Part One, as there will be a bit of a jump in time between this and the next. Not a big jump, maybe a week or so, but it'll be a bit different._

_This chapter contains some suicidal content that may be triggering to some people, so reader discretion is advised. _

_Thank you all for reading and following; it really means a lot to me. I hope you enjoy this chapter, and I would absolutely love to get a review and hear from you :)_

_Also, the usual thanks to MyselfOnly, who is as wonderfully helpful as ever. Send her some love._

_This chapter named for the poem "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" by Dylan Thomas. _

_-Vanimalion_

- Legolas -

A text of dubious origins rests on the table next to my chair, my eyes stalled at the top of the page. I have read the first line what feels like a hundred times, yet I do not take it in… it loops in my mind, repeating over and over as I stare blankly at the words. The thought flows through my mind that this story is poorly written and lacks a certain compelling quality. Perhaps I should put it down…

_No…_

Somehow, in the midst of all of this, I feel that I have nothing better to do. Odd, this sensation. Rather relaxing, if I must admit, yet slightly unsettling at the same time. I take a sip of the tea in my mug. Allaë thinks that I do not know that it is a narcotic, that he is drugging me. I will let him believe that I am ignorant to his ways. I take another sip. It bites me. _I could get used to this…_

"Stop that, you are bleeding again." I look up to see Allaë next to me. I have been so absentmindedly engrossed in this scroll that I did not notice his approach.

"What?" I look at him for a moment, then shake my head in exasperation, "Reading does not make me bleed." _Although perhaps this will, piece of tripe that it is._

"I was talking about your hand." He is as calm as he always is. He is sometimes bitter, rarely passionate, and he will never explode with rage the way my father sometimes does. His anger is colder than that, when it comes. He is like a tree, deeply rooted, quiet and still and strong. It makes me smile slightly to think of him this way.

"Oh." I say after a few seconds of silence. I had forgotten about the small cut on my palm. I have been picking at it because I like the way my skin feels when the scab is carefully, slowly removed. It hurts, it pulls, and for some reason I like it. It is satisfying. I have been doing this for days… which is why the tiny wound remains. I look at my hand. I _am_ bleeding again, he is right. I lift my palm and look more closely, and a small drop falls on the paper that I have been reading. It sits, staining the yellowed page a most beautifully pure and temporary shade of crimson.

Allaë tends to my cut yet again, but his time is wasted as I will only pick at it more now that it has this strange, oily salve on it. But he cares for me, and I can appreciate that. I stare at him as he does his work, watch his carefully controlled expression, a look of one holding in a thousand filthy secrets, an infestation of worms hiding at the core of a seemingly perfect fruit. He knows exactly what he is doing to me.

I have felt odd today. My head is more on my shoulders, and it is both good and strangely unpleasant. I have been off-balance for so long that clarity and sureness of mind feel unnatural and wrong. I must acclimate to this new, sane way of being. If it stays.

I hear the door open but I do not look to see who has entered so rudely without knocking. I do not think that I care overly much. I take my mug from the table and sip it. The deep, clear green of the tea soothes me, and the sharp bite under the honeyed sweetness is satisfying. _You consented to this, in a way. _In the silence I can hear my ears ringing.

Light footsteps approach, and when Allaë is done with his small surgery he straightens up and looks rather cold and formal. His jaw has tightened, his back is straight as an arrow. I sigh. Only Miriel makes Allaë look like that. Miriel. I had forgotten that she was coming.

_Perhaps I do care._

I turn in my seat. "Suilad," I say without even bothering to try and smile. She always seems to know when I am faking, so I have given up. She cannot be fooled so easily, and it makes matters worse when she sees me lying to her face. "You wish to speak to me?" I feel as if there are a thousand other souls in the room, watching, whispering.

"Aye," her eyes flit around my room, taking in her surroundings. My face, my mug, Allaë, and back again to me. "I wish to revisit some of the things we discussed prior to our marriage. I wish to speak of your treatment of Evoril."

Now I remember. Allaë said she would come today. He said it, and then my mind went. I forgot, which worries me. _You should leave_. I hide it. "Yes? Go on."

"All I ask is that you be his father, as we agreed you would."

"You will have to be more specific," _You should -_

She raises her eyebrows in surprise, "Have you forgotten yesterday's incident?"

Finally her words make it to my mind, as if from far away, and only one voice among many - _Leave_. "Miriel, I am truly sorry. I promise I try. I do, but I -" I wish to say all the useless things that might shield me from her righteous anger, but I know there is nothing to redeem me in this situation. _You need to leave._

"I know that you cannot -" She snaps. _Give up._

"Nae, listen! That is not what I -"

"No, be silent and hear me." Her voice is strong, passionate in her conviction. "You cannot. No matter what you think or say, _you cannot do it_. But you must _try harder_, for me. You must do nothing less than as much as you can, for us, who have given so much for you. This is hard enough, do not make it worse."

"I will try," I say, but even before the words come out they feel hollow. "I know that you have given much to me." _You consented to this._

"Do you?" She does not believe me for a moment. "Do you truly understand? Do you see how much we do for you, or are you too wrapped up in your own suffering?" For the briefest of moments her eyes flick to Allaë, but she does not give me time to respond, "Unlike you I _chose_ to be here, and with every passing day I regret that choice. You? You would still be sick and lying if I were not here. This is your fate, and by the Valar I do not pretend to believe that it is easy, but I could have been _happy_." Her expression is open and raw, imploring me to see. _Leave._

She sighs, shakes her head, and sits on the chair opposite mine so as to look directly into my eyes, "I could have been true and open and - and _honest_. I could have raised my child in a home that loves him, in the trees where he belongs. But instead I am here. With you. I am playing your game for you like I should, but do not believe for a moment that we are the same. I gave up the chance of truth for you. For love as well, yes, but I have given everything for you." Miriel's anger is honest. She is like a river of cold, brutal truth. _You need to die._

"Do you understand, can you even _begin_ to comprehend the love of a mother? I have taken my family into your toxic sphere of despair to shield you. I have given up the health of my child to protect you. Every day I see him and I know that he is being poisoned by your blackness. You spend more time with dead things than with the child who needs you. Do you understand yet, _why_ I am angry?" _Give up._

She looks at me and she is cracked open. _You need to leave_. The storm has been brewing for years and now it is out, the fullness of everything she has held back over all this time. I can see it pulling on her, dragging her down with the rest of us, and the damning truth begins to seep through the haze. _You need to die_.

There is silence. I have nothing to say. I feel that everything in my mind has gone blank, and no words will be good enough for this. The ringing in my ears is louder, and it eclipses the world, whispering. _Die._ I am being taken over, possessed. _You consented._

"In any case," she says more calmly, getting up, "Try for me. I do not expect you to succeed. I know you cannot give it all back, but give me _something_. Try, at least try to make it better. Convince me that I did not make such a monstrously tragic mistake in marrying you. And do not think for a moment that you deserve this, from me or from anyone else. Try, and for Valar's sake, show some _damned_ appreciation." _You need to die._

She is done with me now. She has said her piece and I have heard her, and so she is done. She walks out and closes the door and leaves us is silence. Silence filled with whispers, singing, words. _You need to die._

Neither Allaë nor I disturb it as we contemplate her words. I look at my hands and I sit. I am calm, which is slightly surprising to me, and disturbing. _Give up_. Yet my mind is still and I try to find thought, but there is nothing but blankness there. _Die_. My chest is full of empty vibration, musical voices. _Die._

"I think…" Allaë is hesitantly thoughtful as he finally breaks the silence. Hi soft voice feels unnaturally loud, "I think that I see her point." _Die._

And so do I. I did not intend to lie to her, but I see the truth in her words. I am selfish, and deep down I know it. I know that I do not try hard enough to give Evoril what he needs, not in truth. _Let go._ I know that somewhere very deep, I do not want this responsibility. I know that she is right, and now that it has been said I can no-longer ignore it_. Give up._

It is like a drop of poison in the ocean of my mind, coloring every memory I have with Evoril, every thought of him tainted by the knowledge that I am becoming my father. That I am careless and cold in his eyes, and that all I can do is create yet another broken reflection of myself.

_You need to die._

"Please bring me more tea, Allaë." _Die._

I do not want to think on this right now. I do not want to think on anything. The tea comes. It is dark and strong and I drown myself in it, selfishly, yet again running away from the things I cannot repair. And there is great shame in that, I know, but it is the only way I can cope.

Ah! I am _horrible!_ And even the narcotic tea cannot quell the tide of disgust and self-loathing rising from my gut.

I hear them louder now. I hear voices coming from everywhere, silent, soft and gentle and pulling me towards oblivion. Whether my voice or theirs, it does not matter. Despair is a selfish disease.

_Come home. You need to die. Let everything go, leech the sickness. need to die. You are replaceable. You are inherently unworthy. You need to die. Come home. Give up, go back, let go. Die. Die die die die die._

"Allaë," I whisper, so quiet I know he cannot hear me, "Allaë, the voices are trying to take me home." I clutch my mug of tea in my hands, as warm and comforting as endless, black sleep. _It is time for you to come home._

- The Letter -

_My dear Erien,_

_I know not if or when you will read this, but I do hope word of me reaches you eventually. How are you? What is it like, being dead? I hope that wherever you are, you do not suffer. Perhaps you can decide whether or not you are better off being gone. Mandos may be preferable to this, I know not. _

_Not much has changed since you left. Or rather, not much has changed that you did not foresee. I cannot possibly say how much I miss you at these times, Erry. I wish I could speak to you again, have an honest conversation with you now that I am grown. I feel as if my existence stretches before me in an ever thickening tangle of lies that I must keep correctly aligned. Every day I feel the weight of them grow thicker, and the future of my eternity grows ever darker. I have tried to hold onto the joy in life, but every time it slips through my fingers and I cannot fight the cloud of depression. It comes more often and every happy, honest soul reminds me of all that I am not and cannot be. I am trapped and tied in this tangle of things I cannot change, and though I wish to accept them, I am unable. I am sick, and no matter how much I try I cannot heal myself. I have tried every herb, every potion, every method of thought and behavior that I can think of or read but nothing changes. I am stuck here, unable to fix anything._

_I desperately need your help._

_I want to paint everything black, burn every book filled with useless words. Nothing will be deep enough, beautiful enough to redeem me. There is nothing I touch that will remain unstained by the impurity of my existence. I do not know what to do, Erien. I do not know how I can live like this for an eternity and beyond. Valar save me, for I have no other choice. Damn my immortality - no solace will ever be found in life, and no death I can achieve is true. I selfishly long for nonexistence. Ai, how much I wish to hear your wisdom now!_

_I am awash in my own self-pity, nostalgic for all the things I have broken and cannot repair, a home that never was. I feel self-condemned to be naught but a wanderer of my grasping solitude. It is so tiring to keep trying when all I want to do is drown myself in wine and sleep forever in the dark, yet I will. I will put one foot in front of the other and I will keep going under the increasingly vain hope that I will someday be successful._

_I do not know what will happen if one day I listen and let the voices in, but I know that something in me will die, and I will be letting it go unhindered. And that is both terrifying and beautifully, mercifully safe. And then I will not need these letters to keep me sane. I will be in sacred fields of my own, and I will be able to do what needs to be done without this blackness blinding me._

_I started this to try and get some of the feelings out for once, and I think I did in a superficial way. I have not tried to describe what this existence is really like to anyone else, and I do not think that I ever can, but I know that you will understand. You know the little things, the details of my mind and the workings of my soul, as no other has or ever will. Even if you do not comprehend, you will listen to me. You always have. __I fear above all things that I have forgotten the sound of your voice. After all of these years, I fear that you have left me forever. But sometimes I look in the mirror, and if I twist my face just the right way, I look like you, and it is like having you here again, and for a moment I am not alone. _

_I hope you understand that I cannot join you until the Valar will it and decide it is my time, but one day we will meet again. Wait for me; I will come. It will be beautiful, I promise._

_Until then, know that I love you, sweet sister, and miss you more than any words can describe,_

_Legolas_

- End of Part One -

- To Be Continued -


	7. Truth

_This chapter cleaned up with the wonderful help of MyselfOnly. However, she has not read the final draft, so any remaining mistakes are purely mine._

_This chapter begins Part Two, which will contain four chapters, and then there will be an epilogue, for a total of eleven chapters in all. Since the scene order and chapter number were finalized only this last week, I feel like it warrants mentioning. Also, this should finish up pretty quickly, as everything from now on has been written for over a year and is therefore quite polished. I hope to get it all published within a month._

_As always, I deeply appreciate any and all feedback you have to offer. Please let me know what you think of this, it makes me happy :)_

_-Vanimalion_

- Allaë -

It has been more than a week since Miriel came and spoke to us, and I am sure I would have seen a change in Legolas' behavior if he had had a chance to see Evoril. He would have tried, as he does. No matter what she says, he would have tried. But instead Miriel sent her son to stay with his great aunt in the trees, for a change of scenery and time in the forest, she says, but I know it is because she does not want him near the prince. I can understand her desire to keep him squirreled away for some time. He returned this morning, and I have heard that the small excursion improved his health. I am glad.

It has been stunningly peaceful here.

Miriel has been hiding away with her bondmate, and Legolas has not been problematic at all. He has been soft and drowsy and calm, probably because I have been putting tea leaves into almost everything that he consumes. I have managed to keep him here, in this mellow state, by telling the healers that his broken wrist still pains him, and that he has been tired. Or that he has work to do, or that he is at his reading, or any other excuse I can think of. And they all believe me. He needs a rest, he needs time to not worry and not fight spiders and orcs, and no-one will give it to him, so I have created it myself. This week has improved his health as well, I hope. It is the best I can do, but it makes me feel dirty nonetheless.

But he is sober now, with the prospect of visitors. Some delegates from Imladris arrived yesterday, for reasons unbeknownst to me, and tonight there shall be a welcoming party. The prince must make an appearance, and the prince must be perfect.

I am braiding his hair as he sits and fiddles with his knives. He has cleaned them a hundred times since he last went on patrol and yet still he will pick up his cloth and wipe them again, examining the gold filigree and bone handles for any speck of dry blood.

"There is nothing there, they are clean," I say, tying off one of the small braids and beginning to collect a lock of hair for the next. This is a more complicated pattern, one for formal occasions. He cannot do it well himself, largely because he hates it and flatly refuses to learn, so he gets me to do it for him. I do it far better than he would anyway, and we both know this.

He meets my eyes in the mirror in front of us. He is cold. "I have told you before, I find things in them. Little stains. They are hard to see, but I can smell them sometimes, and I know there is still blood within the bone." He brings one up to his face, balancing it in the space between his thumb and pointer finger, spread apart by the splint. He examines it closely, his eyes hard and icy, an odd juxtaposition with the perfect sophistication of his attire. He is graceful brutality wrapped up in pretty bows and ribbons. "See?" He says, holding it to my face with his other hand, "There is a speck of blood there. Close to where those two lines connect and become one. Do you see it?"

"Yes," I say, although it is a lie. I do not see this speck of blood that he wishes to remove. I never see them, and either his vision is far superior to mine or he is delusional. Both are fairly plausible.

He brings the blade back down and grabs his cloth, proceeding to carefully remove whatever it is he sees and make his precious knives clean and pure again. It is impossible, what with the things they have been through, both literally and figuratively. They will never be clean. Yet he tries, and I suppose that is to be expected. He does love them so.

I finish braiding his hair in silence, and when I am done he sets his knives carefully on the table and stands to examine his appearance. He is noble and princely in blues and green, silver circlet woven into his hair. He pulls the wrapping off his wrist, removes the wooden boning - completely ignoring the healer's orders to continue wearing it - and pulls on a pair of soft leather gloves sewn with gold thread and showing the sigil of the Greenwood worked in tiny emerald beads on the back of each hand.

"Thank you, Allaë." He smiles, "This is perfect." I have perfected his appearance down to even the smallest detail. I always pick his clothing, as he has no idea how to dress himself formally. He is utterly lost when it comes to looking presentable. How he failed to learn how to clothe himself is a mystery to me and I can only assume it is a result of poor upbringing. But it does not matter, for that is why I am here, to take care of all the things his parents neglected to teach him.

When we are done I bring him a mug of tea, chilled and strong. He does not take it.

His mouth twitches and there is a hint of bitterness there, mocking me. "Not today, Allaë. I feel like being alive this evening." I raise my eyebrows.

"Really? I did not know this would kill you. You seem to have lived every other time you drank it."

He is remarkably calm when he speaks, "Do not play stupid with me, Allaë. I know what that is, and I know what you have been doing. I know you have been slipping it into everything. But I will not let you sedate me today." I feel my stomach drop. He knows what I have been doing. In truth I am not surprised, as he is not stupid, but I expected him to be angry. Instead he simply turns around and straightens his tunic. After a moment he speaks again, only this time he is kindly.

"I know not why, but I will take the full experience of this damned party whether I like it or not. It feels as though something important will come to pass, and I should be alive." He turns his head to smile at me, and then he walks off, leaving me with a cold mug in my hands and a foolish expression upon my face.

He leaves and I catch up behind him at a respectful distance of a few feet. We meet Miriel and Evoril at the end of the hall and they both look splendid. They smile to see him and he smiles back, though he is never very enthusiastic. They join arms and walk towards the hall looking like the perfect royal family they are supposed to be, gracious and graceful and pure. They are beautiful. So very beautiful, almost surreally so… but the spell is broken when Miriel throws me a purely acidic look over her shoulder. It is times like these that make me immune to their lies.

Miriel may say that she does not mind my presence, that she respects me. She may say that she has no lingering resentment of me. She may say those things much as she wishes but none of it is true, not a word. She will never stop associating me with everything she regrets, and she will never stop blaming me for Legolas' difficulty. She will never let go of that seed of anger.

I do not go in with them as that would be improper. Instead I stand without and wait, as is my due. It is as it has been for the last few centuries. Waiting.

- Legolas -

It is a grand party. The delegates from Imladris mingle with various nobles and some dance serenely to the lilting tune of the music. I have a small glass of sweet, strong wine in my hand, delicately cradled by my fingers that have been gloved in soft white leather, under which each fingernail has been filed to ovoid perfection - every small detail has been perfected by Allaë, and I am physically flawless. I exchange greetings with one guest after the next, strolling through the crowd over marble floors veined with gold. My shoes are of doe skin and they are silent.

The cavern is filled with light chatter, polite remarks, smiles that have been trained since conception to glow with modest hauteur, a seemingly impossible oxymoron that makes everything so much more ridiculous. Perhaps I have grown cynical of late, as Allaë has said, or else wild like my father scolds. I wish for the simple, unobtrusive honesty of Silvan culture. It is freeing, this concept of being one's own self, yet sadly that is not the world in which I live. I have a circlet of divine possession upon my brow and at the moment I feel little better than a political whore.

Miriel is in conversation with some dark-haired Noldo and I turn away, sipping from my glass delicately. I am quite glad that I do not have to speak to her. The words of the conversations around me are bright and polished, and the laughter that flows forth has been rehearsed a hundred times, every note perfected and glittering. It is like cut glass, scintillating.

Everything glitters, like me, like my eyes that have been dusted with silver, like this smile that I wear. It is all encrusted in gold and mithril and rare jewels. The walls, the ceiling high above, the floor beneath my feet, my body and clothing, all glittering in our absurd wealth, and I am smiling like a rare treasure to a guest from Imladris. I am reciting the lines of this great show, just a small player in the larger glory of the lie. We part ways politely as I make some excuse, ready to repeat myself again… _Mae govannen… I am so pleased to see you here… I do hope you are enjoying the festivities…_ Again and again and again until I sail or am assassinated. And then again in Valinor, forever repeating. It is endless. I turn from him and someone else stands before me. I smile. I dip my head. "Mae govannen…"

But for a moment I falter, caught off guard. I know this one. He is the son of one of the nobles from Imladris, his Noldorin blood showing in his dark hair. He bows graciously to me.

"Well met," he takes my fingers and kisses them politely as I stand, as per protocol for those who have met before, yet are of unequal station. I gaze upon him, aloof and elegant as I am supposed to be. He rises.

We are silent, for neither one of us knows what to say after this little show. I see him secretly wishing I would do something, knowing what he wants. He wants me to speak with him, treat with him in the shadows. He wants me to drink with him and offer him a game of chess. He wants me to win, to laugh freely, to be slightly drunk. He wants us to be young and dumb again, like we were all those years ago.

I want him to leave.

We have history, he and I. A good while ago, I visited the Twins for a few years, and there I met him and things became more complicated than I would have liked. Needless to say I do not want him here, now, in the middle of everyone. I do not want him at all. I want him to vanish out of sight and never return to me. Ever. He was a mistake that I wish to forget entirely.

He smiles at me, the picture of courtesy. "Will you show me the gardens? I would speak with you."

I want to hit him about the face for his presumptuousness, but instead I smile again, graciously, the way I am supposed to. I accept, saying it would be my honor, and so we walk. Damn him and my inability to be scathing and cold in public. For a moment I am jealous of my brother and his brutal honesty.

The night is biting and beautiful. The moon is like a sliver among the countless stars, and the air, though cold, is still. If it were not for my current companion, I would say that it is romantic.

We walk along narrow paths through the cultivated wilderness of the gardens until he thinks we have gone far enough and stops, arms crossed in arrogant confidence. I listen as we stand, completely still, but I detect no other elves who might hear. We are safe to speak, at least while we are careful.

I drop all assumption of princely etiquette and turn to him, letting my anger show. "Why are you here?"

He smiles under the silver light of the stars. Calm, carefree, confident.

"My father has business here, as you know. Is it a crime to visit the Woodland Realm?" He cocks his head, brushes a stray hair from his face. "And - if we are to be honest, as friends - I wanted to see you again,"

The look that I give him is frigidly condescending. "We are not friends, Callon." I lower my voice, whispering so close to his face that he must feel my breath upon his skin. No-one would come back without ulterior motives. He is looking for something more than secretive interaction. "Tell me what you really want and be done with it,"

He grins and steps closer. "Love, what else?"

"Love?"

"We both know what I mean. It is not as if your reputation in _certain circles_ is, well, shall we say… _clean._"

His hand comes up as if to touch me but I slap it away in fear and disgust, backing from him and fixing him with a glare so venomous he recoils. I feel my lips curl in fury. "How _dare_ you presume to touch me!" My voice is quiet, but every word is hot with my offense. Every syllable is filled with all my internal fear and self-hate, everything that I try so hard to contain slips out in my tone and once it starts I cannot stop it. It becomes a torrent of feelings, unleashed by the drop of sweet oil he has slipped into my grip upon sanity. I am angrier than I have been in years and ai, _I cannot stand him!_

He watches me, calm and cocky as ever. This enflames my temper even more, "What gives you the right to come and find me and… and… _proposition _me, as if you had even the slightest hope of getting… _anything! _As if I am your… your _whore!_ Who in the name of the _bloody Valar_ do you think you are, to have the _nerve _and _arrogance_ to ask this of me?" I am overly agitated by his actions and the words tumble out of my mouth in a disorganized and rotting heap, but the meaning comes across and even though my voice is quiet he looks away for a moment, almost as if he has finally begun to realise his vileness. I open my mouth and am about to spill more fermented vitriol upon this incautious and disrespectful piece of slime when he reaches out a hand and places one deadly finger over my lips. At this exact moment I glance over his shoulder to the door and see the silhouette of an elf, tall and noble and alone. Watching. Watching as Callon's fingers slide to caress my hair in a move that feels almost violatingly intimate.

We have been seen.

_We have been seen! _

My anger freezes in the cold grip of my fear and I shiver. My eyes are wide as I stare fixedly at the shape in the doorway as he turns and walks back, vanishing into the halls. Tall, lean, masculine… it could be almost anyone at all. And he saw us… he might be going to tell my father right now.

It is then that Callon notices my alarm, follows my eyes, turns. "What?" He is confused, he sees nothing.

"Someone was watching," I get the smallest spike of pleasure when I see the blood drain from his face, but it is gone as soon as it came.

I am terrified for whatever semblance of a life I lead, terrified that I will be thrown from the Greenwood, cast away like the broken wreck that I am and severed from all that is dear to me. If he tells, _if my father knows_… I know not what I shall do, what I shall say in my defense when I am so sure of my own guilt. To shield myself would be too disgusting, for I am deserving of punishment, but not here, not now, not in any way that involves this situation. My judgment shall come from Námo and him alone, and until death takes me I swear I will protect the Greenwood, and may that redeem me. And yet if I am discovered… if he knows…

I look to my companion again and he is still white in the face and frozen, as I must be. Is he afraid for himself? Afraid of being prosecuted for attempted seduction of the prince? Or does he fear me, my wrath? Does he know? Is this punishment for scorning him and spurning his affections? _Could he have done this?_

My mind is a tangled knot of fear and dread and wild ideas, everything more illogical and crazed than the next, but I cannot sort them out. It is all a blur and I feel a familiar tightening in my chest, my breath getting shorter and shallower and my head is beginning to spin… _ai Valar, is this the beginning of the end? _

A bottle is shoved into my hand and I pull the cork and drink gratefully. It is Miruvor, strong and hot and I drain it without a second thought. I feel the heat of it rush through me and it is a familiar sensation, one I associate with calm, and I am closer to the ground, but only just. I turn to him and now we are allies, if only for a few minutes. We are stuck in the same sick, hidden world, and the secret must be kept if any of us are to remain in good graces.

The rest of the evening is surreal and dream-like, and I feel as if I am on some sort of drug. The world becomes numbing and distant as we walk back in, instantly separating in terrified silence. I put on my face and pull a glass of wine from a near table and I am back to being Prince Legolas Thranduilion, talented and successful and beautiful, the epitome of social grace and familial perfection. Master of bow and statecraft. Elegant and pure.

I do not hear the words that flow softly from my lips like sweet sleeping syrup. The hours drip by with poisonous lethargy and with every minute that passes I am less and less grounded in reality. I feel my mind slipping through cracks and flying into madness, separating from my body which remains calm and collected. It is a skill I have learned, to remain sewn and stitched under these circumstances, with eyes upon me.

But when I am done, when the night is up and the stars are bright, I start to slip. I make my way back to my rooms alone, and my solitude touches me only on the subconscious level. I focus only on getting back, hiding behind closed doors so that I may finally fall apart.

- Allaë -

I dip the edge of the paper in the flames, watch as they slip over the crisp words, turning them so quickly into ash. He will never read those words. He must never know of those words.

A summons from the king, handed secretly to me as I waited where my prince left me, read in the silence of his empty rooms. Cryptically worded and calm, but with the unmistakable note of dreadful knowing. Thranduil knows something, and he wishes to speak with me. He knows that I am aware of most everything that his son does, and he has finally become suspicious. It is so strange, this happening. Through all our work to keep him in the dark, he has caught the scent of the rot in the lies we have spun. _How…_

It matters not, in truth. The words burn, for the prince will not know unless he must. Just in case. He would understand, but at the moment I do not care what he thinks. There is a dull sort of resignation settling in me, a calm I should not feel. We have worked so long to make sure that this does not happen, and now it has, and I am called to speak to Legolas' father in private. Do I lie? To whom do I owe the greater loyalty, my friend or my king?

I let the last corner of the burning page fall to the stones before the hearth and I stand. I am empty as I walk to his father's chambers. I am calm, and everything is clear and unclouded by emotion, though I know not how. When I get there he motions me to sit, and I do. He tells me that he will have the truth, the whole truth. Whatever his son is hiding, he will know it. If I remain silent, he will find it. If I lie, someday he will see it. Any way, he will find the truth, he says to me. All I must do is help him. He puts a glass of wine in my hand and sits across the desk from me. He steeples his fingers. They are long and elegant, his son's hands, only calloused as a swordsman rather than an archer.

"If you tell me now, and tell the truth, I will forgive you your involvement in this. Whatever it may be, within reason, your dishonesty will be forgiven should you tell me now. However, if you choose to remain silent, or if you lie, I will gladly see you tried and punished for treason under the law. It is your choice, Allaë. I swear to you, unless what you have done in this is vile, I will pardon you and let you go. What say you?" His eyebrows are raised slightly but he is unreadably calm. He stares at me with those green eyes, watching. He is patient, though. He will wait me out if need be. He has time.

I swirl the wine in my glass and then drink it. I am used to tasting such fine vintages, although Thranduil does not know this. It is not common for princes to be as casual with their servants as we are. Were Legolas someone else, I would not share his wine. But we _are_ close, familiar, and as I let the soothing flavor wash through me everything is clear. Everything is empty, and I feel like I see the world differently, truthfully, as if I have only now looked upon how we are together. In the absence of love and feeling all I see is a tangle of slights, moments that he manipulated me, took me for granted, fell upon me. I know that I care for him, but how? How do I try for someone who makes me work so hard, who takes so much from me? I forget for a moment how much I give willingly, and every time he reminds me how good he is on the inside. I forget the beautiful things and suddenly everything looks black, and what does it matter if I tell his father? It is inevitable, really. Together, this twisted family has made it this long, and now we have been found out. Thranduil will know one way or another, what does it matter if it is now, or a week from now, a month, a year? Such makes no difference when you live forever. He will know, and this way at least I may spare myself. And for the moment, I feel no guilt at selling him out. I feel no remorse. Instead I think of all the times he failed me, and I feel justified. So finish my wine, set the glass down. Smiling, I lean forward and I open my mouth, and I speak the truth.

- To Be Continued -


	8. May Námo Find Me Deserving

- Legolas -

I lock the heavy wood behind me and immediately start pulling at my clothes. The ornate robes and jewels are removed in graceless haste, for I cannot bear to be so masked now. I cannot bear any more hiding, any more plays and lies, anything that is not honesty and truth. My hands shake but the pieces are off, my hair undone, and I am in neutral clothes that do not paint me perfect, beautiful, or royal. I am to the window, the clear night, the stars.

The air is cuttingly cold, and there in silent silver observance the eyes of Elbereth see me in all my bent and broken sin. I cannot hide my soul from the Valar. I am seen through, muscle and bone like clear glass, picked apart as carrion for crows and my grip upon self and sanity is shattered, pieces so small it seems impossible to put them back together again.

Is this it? Is this the moment that I lose my mind and succumb to my own grief and self-hatred? Will I open every door and let out every ghost and make myself as disgusting to the world as I am in my own mind?

For a moment I am tempted… I am so very tempted to end it, by death of grief or shame of exile, the end of this show is so close, within my grasp. All I need do is yell to the heavens, confess my sins to the night air and the words will spread like wildfire. All I need to do is scream my truth, and in death I may touch its silver lining.

My mouth opens and I am numb then, realizing the power in my words. It stuns me into silence, and I exhale but not a sound comes out. I could do it. It would be so easy, so simple and quick, so much changed in but a moment should I but speak the words where the wrong ears may hear them. It is astounding, how easy, how possible, and I can see it happen. I can imagine, feel the words on my lips. I could do it. I could, and everything would change forever. Everything.

I could do it so easily. How amazingly, surreally beautiful that is.

_I could -_

There is a knock and I freeze.

"My Prince…?" I turn and open the door to see Miriel's bondmate standing in front of me. His face is expressionless but I know he knows. He knows half of everything. My eyes are huge as I stare at him, still dazed, dreaming.

He must see that it is becoming harder to hold myself in. That the cracks are running too deep.

"Yes?" My voice is surprisingly calm and I am thankful that it is dark, that the fire burns low, that he cannot see how pale I must be.

"Your father wishes to speak with you. Now."

This, in all clarity, is real. And with reality comes the dropping of my heart like stone in a well. And I know now. This part of the show, at least, has come to a close.

He knows.

_This is the end._

- Thranduil -

I listen in silence as he tells me. The dam has broken and the river of confession crashes over me in disorganized, icy truth. He speaks as one defeated, and every word is given to me in heavy tones. Beribboned bones handed over on a silver platter of shame, the truth at the center of this network of pawns. So close to the surface yet so well buried, these fragile white things have slipped through my fingers in the sand. The love, the marriage, the child… all a dark mummer's farce. It is beautiful, looking at it from afar. It is like a spider's web at dawn, every tie and thread carefully maintained in sparkling, bejeweled perfection.

But no wool need be pulled over my eyes, for I know now that to him I am blind. To see the truth I need to cut him open and take him apart, and yet all I want to do is sew him up into something wholesome and moral. I have missed it all, for I never wished to see anything but goodness in him. And yet he has lied to me. After everything, he has lied, as if I would throw him out when he can be fixed. When we can tie the loose ends and make this less perverse. It is not his fault that he has no love of ellyth, I am sure this disgusting immorality is purely a curse from the Valar, one that we can somehow lift. There must be a way to do it, there is a way for everything, there must be a way. Please, Valar, let there be a way to clean him of his perversion.

But as he speaks I realize that all I can do is know, that there is no action that can be taken to make him normal. My youngest son is sick and there is a bastard in the family. Our bloodline has been tainted by his selfish stupidity, his lack of control, and it is this above all that angers me. He has let his illness get the better of him, he has let it take him over and allow such dishonor to come into our family. The knowledge that the sweet golden child I have claimed as my grandson is the progeny of a guardsman hurts more than I ever thought it could, and in my pain I lash out. I stand and plant my hands upon the desk, my brow furrowed. I snarl at him to leave, and the look of fear on his face is satisfying. Words fall from my mouth, and they are cruel and angry. I am cold and hostile in the face of such shock and betrayal. He scrambles like a cornered deer and sprints to the door, leaving it open as he flees.

When I thought that he could tell me anything, I had not thought of this. I had not thought to hear the extent of the web he has spun, the deceit in the lineage of my house, the dark perversions of his life. I will never stop loving him, but neither can I sit down and swallow this so easily. He has confirmed the words of his valet, and somehow that makes it even more damning. There had been hope that he would say something else, that Allaë had lied or been mistaken, but alas. It is true.

There is a moment of silence and he does not return. I close the door, and after a time I realize what I have done, what I have said to him. And I sit and think in my shame.

The pain washes over me and I let it in, for it is my punishment. It is the payment for my compulsive and angry behavior. He has told me truth and I have slapped him about the face with it, and I must suffer for that, for it is vile. No wonder he believes he must hide from me. No wonder he never sought my council, when this is how I treat him.

I am dirty inside. At the heart of it all, I am filthy and decaying, and I have passed it onto him. _Valar forgive me, I have done this to him._

- X -

I have secrets. Like everyone, I have darkness inside of me, hidden.

I have sinned. Like everyone, I have done wrong. However, my sins are far more secret than most. They are dark, quiet, poisonous fingers at the edge of my mind. After all through which I have lived, after all that I have fought, I alone remain, tortured by my own endless guilt. Through everything, I remain, and I remember, and I drown in my shame.

Long ago, in Doriath, I disobeyed my father. A younger son, I snuck away as they left, all of them in a river of slow horses and feet, walking to the East and out of Beleriand. I returned to the forest that had always been my home. I disobeyed my father and he let me go, for little there was to keep me from the eaves of my trees, he knew.

He knew when to let me run. And later, when the sons of Fëanor came in their jealousy and greed to bring about the Second Kinslaying, I ran like a coward and hid in a secret closet. Chased and bleeding, breathing in terrified silence until the door behind which I stood frozen was thrown open wide.

He must have found me by the sound of my panting breath, seen me running. Or perhaps he followed the trail of blood drops that must have leaked from the wound on my thigh. I do not know, really. Perhaps he was just looking, or perhaps he himself was trying to hide. I will never have the answers.

He was young, my age then, perhaps, and he had hair like thick, night-flavored wine. His face was fair and pale, his eyes blue, his lips thin and light. Everything widening, slackening, red breath slipping from between those lips as I opened his throat with a stroke of frightened steel.

Killing a deer and killing an elf are not dissimilar in the mechanics of things. Both have delicate skin under refined jaws, and important veins that can so easily be severed. A sharp edge sliding through, catching on the stiffer things. Reflexively, bodily, it is the same. I had killed many a young and beautiful deer and decapitated many a vile orc. I had trained for years to act immediately, not to freeze, to strike before all was lost. The muscles in my fingers, arm, shoulder, they knew what to do. I was full of the fire of fear, and before I could properly think, the lights went out from behind his eyes.

And I ran, like the coward that I am. I ran from he, whose name I knew not, who must have followed orders, had friends, a family, a life. I ran from him, and he followed me. He still does, brushing his red breath against the back of my neck and bleeding into my dreams. I call him Ettelion, and though he never speaks and can never be seen in the waking world, I swear that he haunts me still. And every night I pray that I may be forgiven, and I whisper my repentance to anyone who will hear. Every night, for eternity.

We have all sinned, I not least of all, yet even Galadriel is considered great. Why, then, have the Valar passed my darkness onto my child? Why punish him for my crime?

My wine is strong and sweet and I drain my glass, listening as rain begins to pat at my windows. It sounds like the fingers of many small children, tapping and laughing at me like some creature in a pen. I was craven to not give up my life in payment for his, to take his light to preserve my own for fear of death and the judgment with which it comes. I have run, in every aspect of my life, and buried the truth deep within. But I will not run now.

Secretly, I know I have worked so diligently to protect the Greenwood out of the hopes that it will be my own salvation. If I am to survive through the taking of life from another, let me make use of that stolen gift. Let me fight against that which seeks to destroy green and beauty and protect what good I can. Let me shelter my people and provide for the healers that care for them. Let me do whatever I can to keep them safe.

But most of all, let me love. Only now do I see it, under the light of day. Let me love. Let me do unto him what I hope may someday be done unto me. That I may be forgiven and loved, even though my sin is great. Let me keep his secrets, the way Námo may keep mine, and love him in all of his tangled and broken flaws. If I - whose sins are so much greater and darker than his - can hope to be found worthy, then so can he.

He has darkness as I have darkness. They are different, they are unique, but we have been touched by this world that has raised us both. All we may do is try to undo the damage and hope that at the end of all things, we will be found deserving.

- Allaë -

When he comes back from his visit to his father he looks controlled, but after he closes the door he slips a bit, and having lost his footing he cascades completely into insanity.

"He knows!" He is white and his eyes are huge and panicked, he is breathing too fast. "He knows, he knows, he knows almost everything!"

I wince inwardly. It was not supposed to work like this. I walk to him, to touch him, but he backs away, fearful of everything. _Does he know it was me?_

"I do not know how he knows, I do not… Callon was here, somehow, and someone saw us, but nothing… _happened_, not at all, but… oh, Allaë, he knows and he thinks me disgusting…"

I occasionally share his father's opinion on this matter, but saying that seems very counterproductive at the moment. He collapses into his chair and buries his face in the soft fabric. He looks utterly lost and a soft moan drifts to my ears.

He looks up just enough to see me. "What am I to do, Allaë? He knows everything… what do I do?" He is shaking at the tips, pale and overtaxed and tight enough that surely everything must snap apart soon. The image comes to mind of all the muscles and tendons holding him together so long finally giving in, snapping apart with such force that he flies everywhere. It is so ludicrous I almost laugh.

I have, however, never in all my time knowing him, heard him honestly ask for my advice on anything other than public presentation. It shocks me, how completely desperate he has become. I am unsure of what to say. Shall I tell him to be honest, or to fake it like he always has? I know not what to say, and so I neglect to answer, looking for a distraction instead. I go to the cabinet, and I take the easy way out of this, as of course I always do.

I give him a drink. It is green and clear and smells strongly.

He does not take it. He is distracted.

"How does he know… how could he possibly know. It was not so serious or obvious as that, and the light was poor… he was far, and nothing overt was said…" he looks up at me questioningly, his mind making sense of everything. I can feel my heart beginning to beat more quickly as the thrill of fear courses through me. He has his father's blood in his veins, and I do not want to be on the receiving end of such a storm.

He looks at me, he sees, and his eyes widen. His jaw slackens in shock and for a moment I think he is going to fall over dead like humans sometimes do. He searches my eyes intently, all the convoluted suffering of his life open and questioning. _Why?_

But then he shakes his head, sighs. Everything is gone. He has passed the limit of his emotions. Numb.

"Of course," he says, as if it is so plainly obvious he is stupid not to have immediately seen, his eyes still meeting mine, "of course it was you. Of course _you _told him."

He looks away a moment, then takes the glass from my hand and drains it.

- X -

He calms and slowly his breathing becomes deeper. He is far more relaxed. Fuzzy.

"What was that?" He asks when his words begin to slur.

"It is the tea that Miriel has for you, only I have been steeping in in white liquor for the past few days. It permeates very quickly." I am beginning to feel like my skin is filthy and decaying on the inside. _I swore I would never do this._ But I did it anyway. All this time I thought I never would, each time getting closer and closer, one step more. I swore I would never cross the line and put him under, but when I got there it seemed as insignificant as a matte-painted stair. Just one step between hopelessness and insanity.

"I can hear them," he says quietly, "I can hear them from here… they sing to me." He is already going soft in his chair but he gets up anyway. He stands and stretches, walks unsteadily over to his bed and falls upon it. "They are singing to me…" He smiles, and the drug - which has steeped for far too long in the strong spirits - begins to have its full effect. He is calming beyond lucidity as his mind sleeps.

"They are coming to take me home."

He looks peaceful, and it is an improvement from how he was earlier, but as I watch him in his stupor I cannot shake the feeling that I have done something horrible. No matter how I try to justify my actions to myself, I cannot help the feeling that by weakening his mind I have allowed something threatening to come for him…

_Ai Valar, what have I done?_

I wait as he sleeps. I sit on the chair and doze, slipping in and out of restless, waking dreams. I cannot shake the feeling that I have done something bad. I do not sleep, truly, but I am deathly tired. The night stretches on and on as I try to get comfortable on the chair I have unwisely chosen. And then, after some time, I wake. Fully, completely awake. As if in a horribly vivid dream I get up, shuffle like the dead to my prince, and I look down on him. Head cocked, mouth slightly open, I realize with a sudden numbness that he has completely stopped breathing.

_They have come to take him home._

- To Be Continued -

_I'm putting this author's note at the bottom, as it is a bit long. Bear with me, it's important._

_This will be the last AN for the story, since everything left is pretty much polished and ready to post. There are just a few things that I need to smooth out before they go up, but it could be finished in a matter of days. Thank you to anyone who has read, and everyone who has reviewed and followed this story. It's consumed two years of my life now and stems from quite a lot of personal discovery and growth, so I would love to hear your take on the themes and the meaning discussed in the coming chapters. It'll all come together in just a few, so anyone wondering where I'm going with this, it should be clear quite soon. _

_Anyway, as mentioned, developing this story has taken quite a lot of my time and energy, and now that it's almost over, I'm facing a bit of post-story existential emptiness. If anyone has any scenes they wanted to see, characters they wanted me to explore more, any questions about the past or the future of the parts of this story, please, please drop me a review or a PM telling me what scene(s) you want to see, and I will try and write them for you. I love this cast to death and want to spend as much time as possible with them, so don't hesitate. MyselfOnly has already asked for something about Miriel and her bondmate. This is good. Do this. I can't promise I'll be able to get it done, but I would love to try._

_I know I have a very small following - which honestly doesn't surprised me, given how non-traditional and dark this piece is - so I'm not surprised that I haven't heard much from my readers. I'm not one to beg for reviews, and I won't do it now, but it honestly does improve my day to hear from you guys. If you have thoughts about this, let me know, I want to hear them!_

_The rest of the story has been read and critiqued by MyselfOnly, who has been an invaluable help to me through this entire process. If you can't give me a review, go read something of hers and give it a review. She deserves it._

_Chapter 9, "When Death Comes", is titled after a poem by Mary Oliver of the same name. Similarly, chapter 10, "Dead Boy's Poem", is named for a Nightwish song. If you're interested in exploring some of the art that influenced this story, look them up._

_I think that's all that needs to be said here. Again, this is the last AN, so I'll wish you all well, thank you for reading, and I hope to hear from all of you soon :) _

_Fare thee well,_

_-Vanimalion_


	9. When Death Comes

- Elrohir -

_It has been too long since I last saw Legolas, my brother in all but blood. It has been too many years since one of us made the journey across the Misty Mountains and into the far realms of the other. I have had letters from him, and I hear that he has grown into a fine prince. The last time I saw him was at his wedding, a beautiful affair, though something seemed slightly amiss. But that was two centuries past, and he has much grown older in that time. He has had a child and taken more responsibility, and the letters I receive are fewer and farther between. He is busy, I know._

_I think about him often, and my brother and I speak of this as well. We know that he hides his suffering from us, and though it stings to know that he does not trust us with his secrets, we see the logic. We are far away, and he has always been private. _

_But he cannot keep everything secret from us. When I think about it, this seed of discontent has always been there. I did not see it when I was younger, but in hindsight I believe he was never truly as happy as he claimed to be. He was not dishonest, only ignorant. He has never known anything else. And there is no wool that can be completely pulled over our eyes, and though we do not know the specifics, we know that there are more hidden things there. We know that he is not doing well. It shows, if you know where to look._

_Adar says that he saw it from the beginning, and once he explained, we saw it as well. _

_Erien and Legolas were born together, looked so similar that they could not easily be told apart before they grew into themselves, and were connected in a way that even Elladan and I are not. But in their hearts they were as different as they could be. _

_My father thinks that Erien is an old soul. He says she must have lived once before, for there was always a depth and understanding in her that far surpassed her age. She knew, she saw, she understood. She came into the word knowing of love and grief, of death and the workings of the heart. There was a peace and a grace to her rare even among the first-born, and she feared neither dreams nor death. It is as if she had already been there, and she knew that it could not hurt her. And she died young, and alive._

_Where Erien is a deep and still river, Legolas is a wild and beautiful ocean of passion. Where she is old he is new, fresh and free and feeling everything for the very first time. I remember when I was there with them, the way he would look at the world, as if every angle and color was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. There was sadness in him even then, and the low moments of his life were as black and cold as the deepest trench of the Sundering Sea. But there was also a hot burning flame of passion and curiosity, a disarming joy just beneath the surface. It was infectious. The smiles, the way he laughed wildly in the trees, threw himself into waterfalls and pools, and danced under the full moon with hair free and filthy with life. There was a light behind those blue eyes, an intensity of emotional experience that I cannot fathom. _

_When he was young, there was a light so strong. And perhaps he has been impaled upon his own blade, for my father says that love and grief are forever entwined, inseparable. We can tell that he grieves, that he feels pain as deeply as anyone ever could. Through letters and words we hear the sadness, the loneliness, the empty space growing inside of him. But there is beauty also. In all his suffering, he continues to write the most beautiful poems, express himself in lines and colors in ways that transcend all darkness and despair. It is as if, in the dark chasm that houses his soul, there is a candle burning defiantly, a tiny flame standing strong against impending doom, preserving a spot of what is good in the world. _

_Sometimes I am surprised he is still alive, so vulnerable is this light. This world will never be kind to him. He must snuff that flame inside of him, or else suffer forever as he clings to his ability to feel so deeply. And I wonder, if this light should go out without the death of his body, who - of the two of them - will be more alive?_

- Legolas -

It is warm, that is the first thing that I notice. The sun is strong upon my back, hot and total and I know by the intensity of the heat that I am not in the Greenwood. And by this I know that I dream.

I hear a soft rushing and there is a breeze that presses salted air upon my lips and I taste it… it is like trout. Or at least that is what I imagine it to be, for I know that I have never been here before. As I open my eyes I find that I am at the ocean, and endless mass of blue stretching on and on and on, forever and more. It sparkles peacefully and it is calm. The sand beneath me is a pale gold, almost white, and the sky above is cloudless. I wish now that this were not a dream, that I could be here until the changing of the world, and with this I realize that I am at peace.

I am at peace.

_There is no fear in a dream…_

Valinor.

I still ache under the weight of my grief, but I am comforted as I am by the Voices, and because of this I know that they are here. As I realize this I begin to hear them and I turn…

_Love, like a sickness in the soul…_

The words that I know I have heard a thousand times are clear and sharp in my mind and I see them as waifs, slender silver frames garbed in mist and slipping out from between huge dunes of sand.

_We have come to take you home…_

They walk to me as I stand, white robes billowing about me though there is no wind, my hair flowing like molten gold though naught moves it. I stand tall and beautiful as they come, for I know that I have nothing to fear from them. They circle me slowly, moving without tracks in the sand, and they cool the air around them. When I am surrounded they part, and something is carried to me. It is a stretcher, wreathed in leaves of green brightly accented against the white of all else. There is something in the stretcher, though it is yet covered by more pale luminescence. I hear my breath moving with the tide as they slip closer.

They stop before me yet I do not stir. My hair brushes upon my face and yet I do not put it back. I do not move until I know that they tell me to, and then it is a simple matter. I reach out a hand, more graceful and pure than mine own, and I touch the soft film. It is cool and wet and I pull it away to reveal a small child. He is young, Evoril's age, and he has hair like molten gold in the wind. His face is hidden behind soft tresses and yet I do not need to see it to know that this is somehow more personal. I feel a bittersweet connection to this small thing still mostly shrouded by white.

_He is fading…_

I hear the voices in my mind, slipping truth therein. He fades. This small, sweet, gentile thing… he is dying. It fills me with great sadness dull and aching and if all were not so silent I would bemoan my pain, seeping through every vein as a poison. He fades like morning dew under the sun, like stars at the dawn, beauty slipping away softly and without fuss_. He fades…_

And the knowledge is now mine, left there by silent souls beyond the Sundering Sea. I know that like the dew this part of me is beautiful, and just as fated to melt away in time. I shed a single silver tear for the end of something so fair and innocent and pure. I let myself feel the grief that comes with the realization that you have been broken beyond repair, and I am destroyed. I feel as if the salted breeze sloughs off my skin and sends me in pieces upon the world, the end of all hope, to lose this child, my faith… to violate all of my innocence. I am naught but a dead soul adrift in the surf.

In pieces I lie, in circles of white shrouds on strands so warm and bright, and my tears fill oceans within my soul. I bleed through pores and cuts and screams and everything is blank infinity, and I am left with a crushing emptiness that terrifies me more than any torture. I have nothing, I can do nothing, I am nothing but pain. I cannot breathe nor bleed nor feel the sun upon my face. I cannot see nor move nor hear, for I am but a crippled child lying in a hospital bed, a dead boy… a broken ocean soul. I am nothing.

There is water drowning me and there is darkness deafening me. I feel, deeply and with passion. I feel love, pain, lust and desire and the joy of movement, exertion. I feel so much that my spirit thrums with a great chaos of color. I feel everything all at once, and in this, for the last time, I feel grief, and it is the most beautiful thing that has ever been. And then there is silence and peace, and the pain slips away… everything slips away…

Everything. Everything is gone. There is nothing left of me. There is nothing left of me but a memory of who I was.

Everything is gone.

I feel nothing.

_I am numb._

It is warm. I hear a soft rushing and there is a breeze that presses salted air upon my lips and I taste it… it is of emptiness. As I open my eyes I find that I am on a strand, and endless mass of pale gold stretching on and on and on, forever and more. Blue oceans sparkle peacefully and they are calm. The sand beneath me is wet with blood, almost black, and the sky above is cloudless. I see now the child that lies at my feet, that soft piece of my soul snuffed like a candle with my own wet fingertips, and with this I realize that I feel no pain. I smile and I laugh at the blood upon my hands, such a beautiful shade of vermilion, for I have killed a piece of myself, and I hear no voices, need no secret singers, for I feel no pain.

_I feel nothing._

And with this I laugh, sitting alone on the golden beach, white cloth whipping in still air. My blood is on my hands, a dead boy is at my feet… and I laugh. I laugh and laugh and laugh.

- If Death Were Sure -

_I close my eyes and open a third upon my brow__  
><em>_I see truth__  
><em>_The world as it is, not as it should be__  
><em>_And I am alive___

_Damn the cruel, careless gods___

_Free me from immortal pain__  
><em>_Give me the strength to value every breath and tear__  
><em>_Proof of the lifeblood running hot though my veins___

_I understand now__  
><em>_The choice of Elros__  
><em>_How beautiful, to love every moment__  
><em>_Every infinitesimal stretch of time as invaluable__  
><em>_As a grain of mithril through the crux of an hourglass___

_And perhaps if I could be convinced__  
><em>_That Death was as sure as the coming dawn__  
><em>_I would appreciate every shaft of sunlight__  
><em>_And every wound on the inside__  
><em>_Every experience limited and fleeting__  
><em>_I would live my truth in purity, simply__  
><em>_In love with the gift of life__  
><em>_And Mortality___

_If Death were inevitable__  
><em>_I would throw up my arms and speak my truth__  
><em>_I would tear off every mask__  
><em>_And open every festered wound__  
><em>_Break the dams and release and ocean__  
><em>_Rain Soulbeauty over me, please_

___I would live openly, love freely__  
><em>_With the knowledge that whatever may come__  
><em>_It will end___

_If Death were sure__  
><em>_If the end were always nigh__  
><em>_I would live__  
><em>_And love my time alive___

_And when all went black__  
><em>_When all life went slack__  
><em>_I would have done it well___

_I would___

_If Death were as sure as the dawn__  
><em>_And any exile would someday end__  
><em>_I would._

- To Be Continued -


	10. Dead Boy's Poem

- Allaë -

For what feels like hours I am panicked. _Valar save me, I have killed him._

I cannot bear to touch him, shake him, scream into his ear to wake him, so much do I wish it not to be true. But the presence of death is thick in the room, I can feel it. It chokes me even when I run to the balcony to breathe the free night air. I have killed him. I am a kinslayer, a murderer. I have ended him, and even if I jump, fall to my death and join him in the Halls of Mandos, he will never want me again.

This is not how I wished us to part. My betrayal is the last thing he knew of me, it is what will be in his heart as he comes before Námo and looks back upon his life, upon our time together. Valar know I would have fixed it had I known. I would have healed this new wound as best I could, but I am too late. He is gone.

My fists clench so hard my knuckles turn white and my nails bite into the softness of my palm. I am full of deafening blackness, disgust and grief and terror and everything else, trying to get out. I need to scream and bleed and rage, but all I can do is stand, stand and let the images flash by.

Everything that was and will be is shown. The discovery, fingers in paint, my shame, the look on his face at the comprehension of my treachery, a lifetime of guilt, laughter, the grief in his father's eyes. Ai, his father, to whom I so recently spilled our secrets, I will send them both across the sea. The impossibility of it all is blinding. I have destroyed everything that I love.

I spin and walk back in, choking on guilt and grief, running to the cabinet and unstopping a bottle of wine, drinking it in long, frantic gulps.

_Kill me!_

It calms me into stillness and I stand, drinking, watching him remain motionless, breathless, lifeless. _Ai Valar, Lassë… never thought I would see you a corpse_.

I collapse onto the floor and finally, as if they have remembered their existence, the tears begin to fall.

- X -

I am numb when he breathes again. The night has passed and I am stiff on the floor. The tears have left me and the bottle is empty, and I feel nothing but grim, blank defeat. And then I feel him breathe.

I crawl, dazed, to my feet. I know not how I have managed to be so steady.

He moves.

His eyes open and he smiles to see me here with him, next to his bed, and I want to hit him. I want to hurt him for scaring me so, for leaving me, and I want to hug him and hold him and have him know how overwhelmingly happy I am to see him again, how afraid I was, that I realise now how much his half-mad insanity means to me.

"Allaë, you are here!" His lips spread to show his teeth in glorious contentment and he stretches luxuriously with a groan as muscles that have been still move again. They relax back upon the blankets and he closes his eyes, appreciating the warmth of the sun on his bare chest. He looks strangely soft for some reason. I know neither what it is nor how I can describe it, but he is different. And even though I think that it is a good change, something in my heart hurts for him.

He looks at me happily, but his grin fades when realizes that I am not smiling. "What is the matter with you?" His head is cocked like a child and his eyes are caring the way only his can be. Worried and hopeful and fragile.

"Nothing. I am well," and it is almost true, I suppose, although I do not feel it. No, I do not feel well at all. My head pounds and I feel as if I have been awake for years. He shrugs at my answer and gets up, walking into his closet and coming out wearing a pair of loose pants. He goes to the mirror to comb his hair and he is humming a soft, light tune to himself.

It is happiness that I see in him, I realise. He is content, purely content, and it is so strange. I should be glad of it but somehow I am saddened. I watch him. He is smiling to himself, just because. There is no reason, he simply _is_.

"I had a strange dream last night, Allaë," he says in a voice slightly closer to his own, a slight undertone of sadness within. But it is so small it is barely there… "Or perhaps it was not a dream. I was in Valinor, and I found my Grief, and I killed him," he turns to me and he is glowing, "and now my pain is gone, all gone!" He trots over to his windows, "Gone, gone, gone like ashes in the wind at Annon, all gone… and I feel so very light, as though I could fly," He is flowing over with energy and he runs and with a childish whoop of happiness he grab me and pulls me into a bone-crushing hug, laughing a smiling and glowing, even in the morning light.

I smile so that I do not ruin this mood, for it is good for him to be happy. And yet I hate him for it, for being the one of us to cut out a piece of himself and live in joy, for being the one who no-longer hurts. Oh, how I hate him for rubbing it in my face, highlighting my own dark and bitter thoughts. How I wish to feel joy so overpowering I cannot contain it, to take life from the very air and smile just because I can. And yet I know that is not to be my fate.

A day later I come in to see him sitting cross-legged upon the floor, paint in his hands and in his hair. And next to him, smiling happily, is Evoril. Lassë is teaching him to paint the walls and the leaves in bright, clean colours, and it is beautiful. Truly, utterly, innocently beautiful.

A week later, he shoots his first arrow and his father is pleased, and they hug. There is warmth there that was not present before, and it seems that naught is amiss in the world for a moment.

I see them together, smiling and laughing and enjoying each other's company, and yet it is bittersweet. For I can see what Evoril cannot, what he will not see until he is older, that his father has cut himself away from his ability to hurt, and through that his ability to truly feel anything. That first morning's blinding joy was naught but a rebound, like a spring that has been held down and then released, flying dramatically only to settle into stillness. His world has lost a certain colour, a certain something that allows him to touch and see and feel the darkness inside, and instead he is stuck in a world of pastel hues, light and airy and happy. And he is so, so _shallowly_ happy, yet I pity him. I pity his inability to experience passion and the fire of love, the darkness of grief and the hope of new life.

I pity the new colours painted on his walls, the empty hues. They mean nothing to him now. The shades and shapes that brought him to life are now little more than child's play, and his hands and Evoril's work together to cover every inch of living art left in his room. They have made it airy and pale, soulless. Now that I see him I am no longer jealous, oh no. No. To wish for pain is next to madness, but this apathetic joy is so much worse.

- X -

How many of us are so truly immortal that we are untouched by time's deadly hand? In my years of working here, on the sidelines of the war, I have learned that almost everyone dies. Whether it be slow and steady, or sharp and brutal, we all break somewhere. We all have a cracking point, and those who say otherwise are simply so far past they have forgotten its existence.

Death, I have decided, is not a strictly corporeal occurrence. I have seen much of it, even though I have never gone into battle. But others do, and most often return home unconscious, splintered, choking on their own blood. They stop breathing, their heart flickers out, their eyes become glass. Too young they are, too bright. You can see fire in them even as they bleed out into their bedsheets, or get devoured by venom. They die, but they die alive.

It is sad, the same way slaughtering a young buck is sad. It is sad to take something so fresh and new, to put an arrow through it before the soft fuzz has fully left its antlers. This is the dramatic death, the kind sung in songs and heralded as glory. It is bloody, brutal, enthralling in a macabre sort of way. Not like the fate of those who stay. The ones who have been here too long, seen too much. They breathe, aye, but when all light has gone from their eyes, when all love has left their hearts and they have turned to stone inside, what is left of life? When all that holds them to this world is duty and honor, what beauty is there in that? They walk, they speak with voices clear though tired, and they breathe the air as we all do, but they are not alive, though it be not blood that killed them. They are not passionate, afire with the world, joyous and grieving.

And now neither is my prince, and blood has not killed him either. His own loving heart killed him, and I think that I may have expedited the process.

I cannot stay here anymore, not with these royal puppets. They are all dead, just in different ways. Dead or dying and I am sick of living with this family of ghosts. I cannot bear to see Evoril go the way I know he will, fulfill an inescapable fate. He is doomed to die just as the rest have, and I cannot bear to see it. It will suck the life from me, too.

I miss him in a strange and guilty way. I know he is happier now, though I am beginning to question whether it is happiness or just apathy. But either way, I know that things are better for him. He is no longer in constant pain and this is an improvement. Yet he is no longer himself, and I find myself wanting him back. I have worked with him for centuries and now he is a ghost, and I want him back. It has taken me time to realise it, but I want the anger, the mood swings, the despair, the habitual drinking and everything that came with it. I want the broken shell with his head flying from his shoulders. As I live with him in his new state I realise that I cannot care for him in the same way that I used to. Selfishly, I cannot love him like I did.

I realised that his imperfections and flaws made him real. I tried to help him for so many years because at his heart he wanted to be honest, he wanted to work hard for what he loved and express his heart openly. His pain was that of something larger than life - a soul so vast and deep it was uncontrollable - contained, chained and crushed by our culture. It was that ocean that drew me, that beauty that I wished to protect and feed, even in the midst of storm. It was the passion in him that I loved. And I am guilty, for I have realised that his suffering made him beautiful in my eyes, and this is not something I wish to know of myself.

When I leave him it is a quiet thing. I tell him that I am going to visit my extended family in Lothlorien for an indeterminate amount of time. It is a lie. I have no extended family in Lorien, and he knows this, but neither of us care anymore. What does it matter, this untruth? One small tale among many so much worse.

I give him a month to find another valet, and when he does I teach him what to do, and when I am ready to leave I am confident that Lassë will be taken care of. His hair will be braided, he will be appropriately dressed, his fingernails will be clean. He will need no more than that.

When I see him for the last time he is painting leaves. He gets up to look me in the eye, and I cannot bear to see the emptiness within. It is why I left, truly. My Lassë, who I have known for centuries, is gone, and I cannot do it. To see him bodily dead would be easier than this half-alive state in which he exists now. Everything that made him _him_ has been dulled down to this flat, consistent emotional monotone. He has lived in grief for so long that now it is gone there is nothing left of him at all. His insanity gave me dreams.

I wonder, looking at him for the last time, whether the Valar will fix him when he sails, and if they do, how he will look back upon his life from now on and wish so much that he could have cared. And perhaps he will, and if he does, it will destroy him.

I rest my hand upon his shoulder. "Namárië, Lassë."

He returns the farewell, and then I turn and leave. Before I close the door I look back and he is still standing there, his head tilted sideways, a slight frown upon his face, as if he does not quite know what happens. As if - I hope - he will miss me, but does not know quite why. I will believe that, for it is far more comforting than to think he cares not for me at all.

I close the door. I made my decision to leave long ago. It is right. I take a step forward, down the long halls I have walked for so many years, and I do not look back again.

- Everything Ends -

I flee from one Death into the arms of another

Namo's warm embrace has come for me

He plucks us all in the end

(Everything ends)

There are many ways to live, and just as many ways to die

By wind or by blood

We will all be made equal

Crownless skulls made kings of the Void

All made just as empty under the feet of Gods

- To Be Continued -


	11. Last Words

- Legolas -

Allaë left a week ago today and I do not miss him. I do not miss anything or anyone, and it is a nice feeling. I am at some sort of peace and it is smooth and clear and clean here. I am predictable and my feet are upon the ground, my head upon my shoulders.

It is not that I do not know how to feel anymore. I know. I remember. I can recall how I felt the night before, when I thought it was all going to end. I remember the way I felt for my father, for Allaë, for Erien. I remember, but that is almost all. Now everything is flat. It is not quite a monotone, but close. I can be happy, I can be sad, but these things are pale and fleeting. They are like single raindrops instead of storms, and they dry quickly and leave no marks behind.

I am able to do simple things with Evoril. I am teaching him of colors and textures, and he likes this. He makes fine paintings for one of his age. He makes pleasant music as well, which pleases his mother. We are enjoying ourselves, he and I. He is a fast learner.

I think about what I wanted when I was young. I read my diaries from my youth, remember the things of which I dreamt, what I wished my father would do and say. All the things I longed for are in those books, and I study them. I study the mind of my childhood, and I try to recreate the fantasy. I include him in my minor activities, let him accompany me when I care for my horse, teach him how to play my harp. I read him bedtime stories and tell him I love him, and all of it is done without any feeling on my part. No anger, resentment, frustration, but no love either. I am completely neutral. I put on a show, play my part, but it is very different now.

My new valet is quiet and kind and he has a soft, round face. His name is rather odd and he is from Imladris. How he ended up over here is beyond me, and I do not care enough to ask. I feel no need to connect with this one, and he seems perfectly fine with the silence as well. It is a bit of peace for us both, and I believe we will continue to get along well.

I no longer miss my father's love. I have a slight memory of how it felt before, but it grows thinner every day, like a bad dream slipping through my fingers, and I am beginning to forget how it felt, but I do not complain. This way is much less painful, though arguably morally questionable. But I cannot help it.

I stand now across the king's desk as he reads my latest report. It was a short trip of only three days, but we lost two archers to the spiders. So it goes. It is all written there, and he reads it with a slight frown. There is a wrinkle between his eyebrows when he frowns. It makes me smile for some reason. It stirs some very, very small shred of feeling left in me.

"Very good." He says, putting the paper down. "Is this all?" He always asks that.

"Yes. " And then I tell him of the kitten I found in the city. Small and black and fluffy, I gave it to Evoril and that made him quite ecstatic. It is unimportant, but I think he will appreciate the news and I share it with the hope that I am right. I think that I am. My father holds my gaze for a few seconds and I think he might be smiling. Just a bit.

"Good," he says when he is done thinking, "then you are dismissed."

I turn and begin to walk out and I am almost to the door when he calls my name.

"Yes, Ada?"

He is not looking at me, but I can tell he is nervous. Very quietly, tentatively, he whispers, "I love you, Lassë,"

We are both quiet for a moment, and I am mildly surprised. He has never said that to me before, at least not that I can remember… I wonder why he chose now to do it? This is a strange sign indeed, and I find that I do not believe him. I would be glad to, if I can be truly glad at all, but I do not believe. And I have nothing to say. I stand for what feels like minuets, staring at the silhouette of his head, there in the chair, firelight giving him a strange sort of halo. But there is nothing to it. I have nothing to say, so I leave him there. I step through the door and close it behind me, and I leave him in silence.

- X-

My fingers are covered in blue when I hear a knock at the door. The swirls that I have made are soft and beautiful, and they appear like my dream, sparkling. I wipe my hands on the towel beside me and call to enter, for I know that it is my wife, and she can see me like this. On the floor, slightly undressed, and covered in colors. I get up when she enters.

She says nothing in greeting but rather simply holds out a scroll for me. It is bound with a black ribbon… ill news. "I thought you would like to know," she says quietly, and then she places the scroll in my palm and walks out. I look at the paper in my hands. It is a short and formal letter, a memo. There is neither flowery speech nor niceties. It is a factual thing. I unroll it. I read.

_The party that left on the first day of spring of this year, destined for Lothlorien, has been attacked by orcs. Evidence found has lead us to believe that none survived. The full report shall be filed in a few days' time._

_The following individuals in the party have been proclaimed dead:_

I read down the list of names slowly, looking for names that I know. The elleth who wished to marry my brother before he became cold, the one who made my bows when I was a child, the stablemaster's boy… there are twenty names in total, and finally, among them I see Allaë. It is his group that has been taken.

_Allaë is dead._

I suppose it is fitting. If he is to leave me here, he will leave me entirely. He always did things precisely, finished them to the end. Leaving was just one more task to complete. I should not even be surprised. Allaë was made to be here, with me, in my room, braiding my hair and chiding me with his lightly poisoned tongue. He could never exist in any other setting, and so he never will.

The silence in my room has deadened me. I look over to my wall, to my pallet and paints resting on the ground beneath it. I feel as if he should come walking out of my storage room with a sigh and a slightly exasperated expression. He should smile at me the way he always would when he saw me happy. He should tell me that I am selfish and callous, hand me clothes he knows I hate and laugh at my scowls of displeasure. But he will not. When my valet comes it is this new boy, this thing of soft features and red hair. There is nothing of the friendship that we shared, nothing at all. Not even a hair of him left behind, so completely has he gone and cleaned himself from the world. And as I sit upon my chair, the letter in my hand, I do not cry. I do not feel a lump in my throat or a pain in my chest. I do not feel the heat of tears in my eyes. I do not hurt. I will never hurt. I will never feel anything. I left that part of myself on a beach in Valinor, and there it will stay, with Erien in the Halls of Mandos.

I will never feel anything again.

I shrug, get up, and go back to my paints, for I do not hurt, and the future is no longer so dark. Evoril is there where I left him, sitting upon the floor next to a spot on my wall. He is smiling and he has paint on his hands. He has paint in everything. It is a new shade. That makes me slightly happy, I know not why. Maybe because they are pure… it has the most beautiful color, that paint, rich and clear, but it stirs nothing deep inside me. That something in me is broken and gone. The sight of my emptiness stirs nothing in me and I know as I sit down next to this bastard that is my son, it will never stir again on this side of the sea. It is dead, and though I wish and know I should, I cannot find it in myself to truly care for anything at all.

- X -

"_You look beautiful, Lassë." Allaë says to me, resting his head upon my shoulder as we both stare at my reflection in the mirror upon my wall. He is right, I am beautiful. He knows how to dress me, in shades green, dark and light, hints of gold, silver, blue to bring out my eyes. Dark leather boots and a hint of silver powder at the corner of each lid. He has braided my hair in the fashion of my house. Not the simple warrior braids that I do every day, but the kind reserved for special occasions, intricate and precise. Horribly uncomfortable, but beautiful. He reaches over and takes my circlet from its box with slender hands gloved in soft black leather, and places it upon my head. _

_We admire his handiwork for a moment, for he has made me so very much not myself. He has made me look like the flawless prince I should be, the youngest of the King's sons, regal and pristine upon this special day. I am a piece of political power wrapped up in ribbons and bows and tied with gold. Beautiful. Pure. I am to be married today._

"_Now smile." He says, lifting my chin. "This is supposed to be a happy day… you must look as if you are enjoying it." _

_It is meant to be in jest, but it is not. Some things are too close to the truth._

"_All should go well," I say, and I smile at the mirror, tweaking my face this way and that to make sure it looks right. I need to be ecstatic and in love. "We have worked it all out and this arrangement shall be best for us all. Or at least tolerable."_

_He smiles at me knowingly, for I have explained this to him, and somehow he finds it slightly amusing. That annoys me and I turn away and let the smile melt from my face, settling into a comfortable, flat expression. It is the only one I really wear often, when no-one is looking. Someone knocks upon the door. I call to them, saying I will only be a moment. He straightens my clothes, my crown. He must make me perfect. He steps back, looks me up and down, and gives a nod of approval._

"_Smile," he says. And so I do. His lips are tight, but he tries to look happy for me anyway. He fails. Perhaps he does not find this so funny anymore, and if that is the case I will be grateful. I leave the room, letting the door click softly behind me, and walk down the hall, knowing that Allaë will be following me, as he is my valet and that is his job. Forever and more, as solid as a tree and as real a being as I may ever know. I could sense him there, breathing lightly and ready to be there for whatever I needed. And always just a few steps away._

- X -

I am still alone, but I am no longer lonely. My soul has never been so white. I have never felt so flawless, perfect.

I have never been this pure.

- Last Words -

I am, in essence, a spirit free

Lonely, blue, and singing for the sea

The Voices are of beauty

Lifting pain

Oh sweet, relief

I dreamed of souls dressed in white

Of oceans wide and blue

End of night

Eternal light

My pain therein they slew

The sickness has been cut from me

Infected flesh burned clean

And now I sleep with silence singing softly

I cannot breathe

The waves are high above me

Suicide of soul

I cannot see

For I am drowning in contentment

I am drowning in my apathy

And in this deadened silence

All I wish is that you sing

Call me back to life

In silence

All I wish is that you

Sing to Me

- Namárië -


End file.
